India, Italy mull joint investment in third countries: Delhi's first such proposal with any European country

Italian Foreign Minister Luigi Di Maio co-chaired the twenty-first meeting of the Italy-India Joint Commission for Economic Cooperation (JCEC) together with the Minister of Commerce and Industry, Piyush Goyal on Friday. At the meet India raised the issue of mutual recognition of CoWIN vaccine certificate and opening up of travel restrictions, longer duration of Business Visas and Portability of social security benefits of Indians working in Italy

The meeting took place a few days after Di Maio had an interview with his counterpart S. Jaishankar on the sidelines of the G20 Foreign /Development in Matera, testifying to the commitment of the countries to consolidate the all-out relaunch of bilateral relations.

The Italian Foreign Minister pointed out how, despite the Covid-19 crisis, several Italian companies have continued to invest in some strategic sectors of the Indian economy, such as the automotive, food processing and energy transition. A - Fast Track Mechanism and Permanent Digital Platform for Economic Cooperation - put in place to facilitate market access and investments has achieved results.


The two ministers also agreed to deepen cooperation in the field of food processing and to explore new opportunities also in the textile and leather sectors, and to this end they decided to set up as many sectoral working groups. Di Maio and Goyal therefore agreed on the importance of deepening the Italian-Indian partnership and joint investments in third countries.

Di Maio then focused in particular on the commitment to develop a strong partnership in the field of innovation and start-ups, underlining the importance of India's participation in the next "G20 Innovation League" which will take place on the sidelines of the Sorrento Ministerial Commerce.

Evaluating the outcomes of the recent EU-India summit in Porto, Di Maio reiterated Italy's support for relaunching negotiations on the free trade agreement, while hoping for the conclusion of agreements on the protection of investments and the Geographical.

The Commission concluded with a session on the energy transition which was attended by the leaders of some of the main Italian and Indian companies. The head of the Farnesina, in underlining the high potential of a strategic partnership between the two countries in the field of energy transition, recalled Italy's commitment through the G-20 presidency and the partnership on COP-26 with the United Kingdom to raise the level of ambition of the international community on the fight against climate change and accelerate the spread of renewable sources.