The Lord Mayor of Cologne, leading a high ranking business delegation, rolls out the red carpet to Indian IT/BT firms
The City of Cologne, Germany is creating new impulses with its India initiative launched in 2006. Mayor Jürgen Roters, leading a high ranking business and science delegation, recently visited New Delhi, Mumbai and Bangalore along with a team from Cologne’s Economic Development office, in order to promote the business and trade fair location of Cologne, to strengthen administrative relations to Indian government departments and to improve scientific contacts. The delegation included Enrico Ruhle, Managing Director of Bangalore based TUV Rheinland India, Ralf Reich, GM and Country Head, Wipro Technologies and Vishaal Gupta, GM and Head-Europe, MindTree.
Mayor Jürgen Roters heads up the City of Cologne's administration with some 17,000 employees, presides over the city council, is the top-ranking representative of Cologne and the first point of contact for business, culture and politics, both nationally and internationally.
The Cologne-India initiative, which was launched in 2006, has seen quite a few Indian businesses setting up shop in Cologne, since the launch of the initiative. Some of the major investors who have set up shop in Cologne include IT services firms like Wipro Technologies, which has its German headquarters in Cologne; MindTree Ltd, which relocated its German and European headquarters from Frankfurt am Main to the cathedral city, or Defiance Tech GmbH. Today, around 50 companies with an Indian background are based in Cologne.
While Bonn, Berlin and Munich have been at the forefront in attracting investors, Cologne felt left out, and is now trying its hands at attracting investors, with focus on services sector, hoping to do a Bangalore in the IT services space, though it has a population of only about a million.
Mayor of Cologne Jürgen Roter, also chairman of the Supervisory Board of Koelnmesse, an organiser of fairs, and Koelnmesse chief Gerald Böse spent time in India to promote the trade fair location of Cologne and to attract new trade fair participants and reach potential investors especially in the areas of IT/BT.
Some of companies Cologne has been trying to attract include companies to the Biotech Park in the city as also to its Chemical Park, which was founded in 2002, has 25 life-science-companies operating from there. The City wants Indian biotechnology firms to set up shop in Cologne, especially at the Biotech Park. The park, spread over quarter of million square metres, has rental space of 40,000 square metre.
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The delegation, led by the mayor, met the head honchos of Indian biotech companies that will be built on in the future. The existing 25 life-science-companies were informed of the India trip and will be supported if there is interest in an Indian expansion.
Meanwhile, the Chempark too in Cologne has 68 companies which include 30 manufacturing and research units, with rest being service providers. Most companies are global players and are already active in India. The chemical park was founded in 2003 and since the end of 2007 it has existed in its current form spread over 100 hectares.
Jurgen Roters, along with his delegation, ended their last leg of their Tour with a visit to the German Testing, Inspection and Certification Body, TUV Rheinland (India) Pvt Ltd at Bangalore.The delegation visited the company's Photovoltaic Laboratory, the EMC Laboratory and their Office at Electronic City. The President of Electronic City Industries Association(ELCIA), Mr Babu Rangaswamy also participated and presented the activities of ELCIA to the delegation. Ms Audrey DSouza, of the Indian German Chamber of Commerce also presented the activities of IGCC. The delegation later visited WIPRO, ITC Info Tech and wound up the visit with a meeting with NASSCOM.