The 20th Session of India-Italy Joint Commission for Economic Cooperation (JCEC) was held in February 2019 in New Delhi. The JCEC is an institutional mechanism for bilateral trade engagement. The meeting was co-chaired by India’s Federal Minister of Commerce and Industry Mr. Suresh Prabhu and Italy’s Deputy Minister of Economic Development Mr. Michele Geraci.

Mr Prabhu highlighted the importance of Italy as a trade partner. Italy was India’s 5th largest trading partner in the European Union and 25th in the world during 2017-18. Italy has inherent strengths in manufacturing, design and innovation and skills training while India has a vast pool of skilled human resources, competitive wage rates and an edge in sectors such as leather, gems and jewellery, auto components and textiles. There is an immense potential for Italian and Indian industries to have partnership and cooperation.

The Commerce Minister said India has an attractive foreign investment policy and a number of liberalization measures have been undertaken in recent years. Italy is 17thin the FDI inflow ranking into India between April 2000 and December 2018. Total FDI inflows from Italy during this period stand at USD 2.72 billion.

Mr. Geraci pointed out that Italian companies are keen to invest in India and it is time to put in place practical mechanism on the lines of the working group on agriculture that has been set up to facilitate investment joint venture agricultural sector both countries. He further said Italy is looking to work in areas like financial services, renewable energy, infrastructure, transport development in railways, construction and the automotive sector.