Monte Carlo: India is in a sweet spot, beautifully positioned to attract more investments from Europe into India, not just in the startup sector, but overall in the technology and supply chain sectors, Jawed Ashraf, Indian Ambassador to France and Monaco, said in an exclusive interview to ANI.
The Indian envoy was here to cheer and encourage Team India Sea Sakthi which is participating in the 9th Monaco Energy Boat Challenge. Ashraf further said that the opportunities are invaluable for the Sea Sakthi team, which will go back with great confidence, but also with new learning. “I think each of them is seeing new opportunities at an international level,” he added.
“In a few days Indian startups are participating in four different events in France alone. We had five Indian startups, pitching in the Cannes Film Festival in the Metaverse category. Three out of five were founded by women entrepreneurs, and we had another lot of them participating in another Metaverse or audio-visual innovation festival in France in mid-June,” Ashraf said.
He further added that in Vivatech 2022, which took place in Paris, 65 startups had participated. After their participation, they received feedback in which many of them got very interesting collaboration offers or queries.
He further said that some of the offers were from large global companies. One of them is about to launch the product in France. “We have already started talking about the launch of UPI or interoperability of UPI in France.”
Ashraf said, “the more exposure we give our startups, the more we catalyse their presence abroad, the more we open the doors for them. They can enter the global market, learn the international trend, standards and opportunities and specifications. They can keep improving themselves and innovate more. I am getting a broader sense that the world is getting aware through their work of the enormous potential in India and therefore there’ll be a much higher level of investor interest also in investing in India.”
He further said that post-COVID, the GDP in the country saw growth of 8 to 9 per cent. “It is from both the market perspective in India and also from the larger global economic rebalancing, which is taking India as perhaps the most attractive opportunity we have now for investments,” the ambassador added.
He said that with the kind of technology solutions growing out of India, the country will no longer be simply importing technology for itself, but was also going to become a major exporter of technological solutions and products.
Talking about the Sea Sakthi team, he said, “I’m very happy that in the 9th edition of Monaco Energy Boat Challenge for the first time we have an Indian team from Kumara Guru College of Technology of Coimbatore. What is very interesting is that they put this boat together in one month and it was so well designed that it was immediately accepted in what is a very rigorous standard of global competition.”
Ashraf said that Prime Minister Narendra Modi has been playing an important role. He had given a great priority to clean energy. “We want to eliminate or reduce the use of fossil fuels. Whether it is big cruise liners or small boats towards more sustainable forms whether it is driven by solar lithium-ion batteries, or later on maybe perhaps also with some other boats with hydrogen.”
