EUROPE | April 2021 | Issue 07 | India keen on investment, trade talks with EU

Message From SESEI

Greeting from Project SESEI!!!
Dear Readers,

We are pleased to present our seventh edition of “SESEI newsletter – Europe”. India, at present is grappling with the devastating effects of the second wave of the covid 19 virus. Steep rise in the covid cases has forced the states to impose complete lockdown until the numbers starts subsiding. With hope for “state of affairs” to become better and the country to return to normalcy, we bring to you this edition of the “SESEI Newsletter – Europe”, providing you with important snippets from India on the Project priority sectors covering ICT, Smart Cities, Mobility, Electrical Equipment including Consumer Electronics, Energy Efficiency and Environment, etc. for the period of January 2021 to March 2021.

The United Nations has raised India's growth forecast to 7.5% for calendar year 2021, marking a 0.2 per cent increase from its projection in January, but said the country's outlook for the year remains highly fragile. The surging Covid-19 infections and inadequate vaccination progress in many countries threaten a broad-based recovery of the world economy, said the World Economic Situation and Prospects report. With “Make in India” as the slogan, Government is intending to take many measurers of strengthening the standardization bodies. Following the EU example of Harmonisation of Standards and Single Market, which means One EN applicable among EU members while replacing 34 different national standards, Consumer Affairs, Food and Public Distribution Minister has called for embarking on a mission of 'one nation one standard' and make India the leader in setting global benchmarks in setting standards. The minister said that BIS should explore international partnerships and associations to achieve synergy in the field.

National Standard body, Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS) has brought out 'BIS Talks' Film’s series on standardization in different technology sectors to spread awareness about the benefits of standardization and status of its standardisation activities among various stakeholders such as industry, academia, research & development institutions, Govt. Bodies, laboratories etc. To support domestic manufacturing, the government has also proposed an increase in customs duty on certain imported components used in automobiles. Similarly, Department of Telecom (DoT) has directed all state- -owned companies, central ministries, and government departments to give preference to locally produced cybersecurity products in public procurement.

The production linked Scheme (PLI) has been launched across many sectors. The primary motive to encourage indigenous manufacturing and enhance uptake of Indian products is at the core of this scheme. Telecom PLI has already been approved by the government. The telecom and network equipment manufacturing giants like Nokia, Ericsson are looking forward to expanding their base in India. The scheme will cover core transmission equipment, 4G/5G and next-generation radio access network and wireless equipment, access, and customer premise equipment (CPE), Internet of Things (IoT) access devices, and enterprise equipment such as switches and router.

Indian Urban Data Exchange (IUDX), SmartCode, Smart Cities 2.0 website, and Geospatial Management Information System (GMIS) were also launched during this period. India Urban Data Exchange (IUDX) Program toward building an Open-Source platform that facilitates secure, authenticated, and managed exchange of data amongst various data sources and consumers, we are pleased to inform that the IUDX Program will adopt ETSI’s NGSI-LD Application Programming Interfaces (API) specifications for its resource server. Ropeways and Alternate Mobility solutions which were earlier being reviewed by the Govt. think tank - NITI Aayog will from now onwards come under the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways. This means that the Ministry will have responsibility for development of ropeway and alternative mobility solutions including its technology, construction, research, and policy in this area. Formulation of institutional, financial, and regulatory framework for the technology will also fall under the ambit of this move. SESEI worked closely with NITI Aayog and BIS on the safety standards required for the Ropeways based on the CEN standards.

Moving towards Electrical Vehicles by 2030, the government is also stressing upon shift towards a completely indigenous battery technology in the coming years. This could be metal-air, metal-ion, and other potential technologies in the R&D pipeline.

After a hiatus of eight years, trade talks between India and the 27-member grouping will "resume" for the possible conclusion of a 'Free Trade Agreement' (FTA) between the two sides. Keen to accelerate investments, technology and capital flows from the EU, India wants the investment and trade deals to happen parallelly and independently which means both the investment deal and trade deal will be addressed parallelly and independently.

India – Finland also held its virtual summit - both sides reviewed the ongoing bilateral engagements and expressed their desire to further expand and diversify the relationship across sectors such as trade and investment, innovation, education, emerging technologies including Artificial Intelligence, 5G/6G, and quantum computing etc.

The Newsletter carries information on many other important topics related to investment landscape and market synopsis concerning important project priority sectors in India. We also provide you details of the upcoming important events/ seminars and workshops. Draft standards formulated by the standardization bodies are also annexed with this Newsletter.

Hope you will find this Newsletter informative. Happy Reading!!!!

Warm regards,
Dinesh Chand Sharma (Seconded European Standardization Expert in India)
Director – Standards & Public Policy
Mobile: +91 9810079461, Desk: +91 11 3352 1525
E-mail: dinesh.chand.sharma@sesei.eu