Sweden announces $ 6 million as seed money for innovation projects in India

STOCKHOLM: India and Sweden on Tuesday signed a joint innovation partnership and agreed on a joint action plan with a seed money of $ 6 million from here to push PM Narendra Modi’s Make in India initiative besides agreeing to work on a security agreement that would enable intelligence sharing.

Taking forward their defence cooperation including joint production the two sides decided to strengthen their defence partnership. The two countries agreed that the innovation partnership will be a ‘win-win” outcome.

The Innovation partnership will push cooperation in the fields of smart cities, clean technology, universal housing, renewable energy, e-mobility, start-up, waste disposal, space and aeronautics with an objective of creating jobs and sustainable development for Indian citizens, according to senior Indian officials. The partnership was signed after extensive talks between the Swedish PM and Modi, who became first Indian PM to visit Sweden in three decades.


“Sweden has been a strong contributor to our 'Make in India' program and Swedish PM led a big delegation to the Mumbai summit in 2016”, Modi said in his remarks to the press after bilateral Summit meet that also agreed to form a joint cyber security task force and push defence cooperation. “India and Sweden will work on security agreement,” Swedish PM Stefan Lofven said following his talks with Modi.

“I would like to commend the Indian govt and its strong focus on innovation as a key to progress and prosperity,” noted Löfven. It is not very well known that India share special partnership with Sweden since the days of non-alignment.

Innovation was a big take away from Modi-Lofven meet in the backdrop of Sweden as hub for innovation. In this context Modi noted an "intensified political and business interaction" will take place between India and Sweden and felt that Swedish inventions can contribute to 'Make In India'. The PM even went to the extent of saying India-Sweden relationship was "a perfect match".

"Sweden has always been India's partner in the defence sector. There will be new opportunities in the defence sector. We have decided to strengthen relations as far as cyber security is concerned," he added. "We have set up a common task force for Cyber Security…No important development is complete without the voice of India."

Modi arrived here on Monday night for a two-day visit from where he will proceed to UK and Germany. Sweden has been on a charm offensive towards India recently, supporting Modi's "Make-in-India" manufacturing summit with Löfven leading a delegation of Swedish industry leaders to the launch event in 2016. India is also an increasingly important market for Sweden, with more than 160 Swedish companies now established in the country, including Volvo, SAAB, Ikea and H&M