Swiss President sees high potential in bilateral ties

Switzerland President Micheline Calmy-Rey on Tuesday said that economic and bilateral relations between her country and India need a further push as the scope and potential for the same is much bigger than what it is now.

"The bilateral trade between India and Switzerland has reached the Swiss Frank 2.5-billion level. We can do much more. We also know that the Swiss direct investment into India is not very high at present," she said addressing a gathering of industry representatives at the CII-Sohrabji Godrej Green Business Centre (GBC) here.

"Both the countries are currently consolidating the bilateral agreements, which are very important for economic relations between the two countries. We can do more together," she said while pointing out the new found interest among Swiss companies in India.

She also stressed the need for higher cooperation between both the countries in areas of sustainable development, green business and alternative energy development among other environmental issues since the partnership with a big country like India, according to her, will have a global effect.

The Switzerland's Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC) today inked a memorandum of understanding with the Hyderabad-based CII-Sohrabji GBC.

The MoU seeks to support and partner initiatives in India that address climate change issues through public-private initiatives in energy and water management among other things involving community participation.

SDC is looking to increase collaboration with private industry in taking forward these initiatives, according to the Swiss President.

Under the first phase, the GBC would take up projects in industrial waste water and municipal waste water management, village drinking water and sanitation programmes, and watershed management, which would be partly funded by the SDC, according to S Raghupathy, senior director and head, GBC of Confederation of Indian Industry (CII).

These programmes have been initially proposed in Rajasthan, Tamil Nadu, Madhya Pradesh and Andhra Pradesh in collaboration with the respective state governments.