Raising the stakes

As India began its process of industrialisation, Italy played a supportive role. During the post-colonial period, Italian companies were among the very first ones to acknowledge the importance of the Indian market.

Names like Fiat, Piaggio, Innocenti or Ansaldo became very popular in the country. Virtually every Indian knew some of the then ubiquitous Italian products: “Millecento”, “Vespa” and “Lambretta” were part of the urban landscape of India.

The two biggest private industrial groups of India and Italy, respectively Tata and Fiat, have started a collaboration in the auto sector which promises to be very fruitful; the biggest Italian petrochemical group, ENI, has established a stable commercial presence in Delhi; the most important Italian insurance company, Generali, struck a deal with an Indian partner with a view to start commercial activities once the authorization process will be completed.

Apart from the biggest groups, a large number of small and medium sized enterprises have shown a concrete interest in entering the Indian market. Italy is the 10th most important export destination for India and ranks 18th in the list of suppliers.

Among the EU members, Italy comes 4th after the UK, Germany and Belgium as export destination and ranks 5th, after Belgium, Germany, UK and France as supplier.

The growing interest of Indian companies in the Italian market is attested by the successful venture of Videocon, who successfully acquired the Thomson company’s colour television facilities in Italy, thus becoming a major player in the Italian market.

As far as FDI (Foreign Direct Investments) are concerned, the total amount of Italian investments in India over the period 1991/2005 is 485.7 million US$ (1.58% of all FDI in India in the same period).

Italy seems to be a very important partner of India when it comes to technical cooperation, ranking at the 5th place after the USA, Germany, UK and Japan.