[gallery td_select_gallery_slide="slide" ids="16928,16927,16925,16926"] Hassan Cheruppa Saudi Gazette The recently concluded 4th GCC-India Industrial Forum was instrumental in bringing closer many business leaders and investors as well as government officials from the six Gulf Cooperation Council states and India. Speaking to Saudi Gazette, a number of these prominent figures emphasized that the forum drove home the point that enhanced business ties and rapport would be helpful in catapulting business ties to the levels of strategic partnership in various vital sectors. "The most outstanding outcome of the forum is the decision to hold the forum every year, says Manoj Dwivedi, joint secretary at India's Ministry of Commerce and Industry. "This is a great signal of increased awareness about the need to have much closer interaction to establish strategic business partnership between the two sides. The King Abdullah Economic City in Rabigh hosted the 4th forum on Nov. 18-19 after a gap of eight years since convening the 3rd forum in Mumbai in 2007," he said, adding that India will host the 5th forum in 2016. "There are lot of similarities between GCC states and India, and we came to the conclusion at the forum that we can share so much. It has opened up more opportunities for partnership in investments and promotion of trade, and there has been a consensus that there would be a bright future of economic prosperity for the GCC-India region." Dwivedi highlighted that partnership on both sides are of paramount importance. "I am optimistic about having more opportunities for interaction at official, business and chamber levels. There should be more opening up in diverse fields and at different levels, and it is certain that we can partner each other, though slowly and gradually, in order to attract more and more investments." Dwivedi said the forum identified some areas for future cooperation. "We have identified areas such as renewable energy especially solar, health and medical services, IT, and infrastructure development. We also identified some commodities for export and import between the two sides, in addition to giving emphasis on small and medium enterprises as well as partnership between businesswomen of both the countries." Dwivedi was a speaker at the forum's plenary session titled "Challenges and opportunities in the area of the Gulf industrial exports to India and vice versa." Ali Hamad Al-Mulla, assistant secretary general for Gulf Organization of Industrial Consulting (GOIC), was the moderator in the session in which the speakers were Saleh Aladad, director general of the department of marketing and information in the Saudi Export Program, Younis Alawi Mohammed Ali, vice president of Bahrain Contractors Society, Ahmed Al-Mutairi, director of technical services department at Gulf Standardization Organization, and Vir S. Advani, executive director & president of Electro Mechanical Projects Business division of Blue Star Company. Speaking to Saudi Gazette, Advani said, despite a slump in crude oil price, business is fast growing in the Gulf. "I am very happy to be in Saudi Arabia for the first time as it gives me an opportunity to have interaction with a wonderful team of business leaders from the Gulf states, in addition to have closer look into the Middle East's largest consumer market — Saudi Arabia," he said while disclosing plans to open branches for his company in the Kingdom. Blue Star is India's largest air-conditioning and commercial refrigeration company. Headquartered in Mumbai, Blue Star, with an annual turnover of $500 million, has branches all over India and its products were exporting to 15 countries, including all GCC states except the Kingdom. "Last year, we decided to enter the potential Saudi market and our team, based in Dubai, visited the Kingdom several times to facilitate a strong entry into the market," he added. S.B. Pathmanaban, chief marketing officer of healthcare services at SRM Institutes for Medical Sciences (SIMS) – Chennai, said that there is big scope for GCC-India tie up and cooperation in healthcare and health insurance sectors. "There are limited Indian players in the Gulf healthcare sector, and there are ample opportunities for more players. Most people in the Gulf don't have proper awareness about the quality and affordable healthcare facilities and services available in India." The 1,000-bed SIMS is one of the biggest private medical colleges in India with many super specialty clinics. At present, there are patients from 33 countries at the hospital. Mohammed Kavungal, member of Saudi Indian Business Network (SIBN), said the forum unveiled vast opportunities for cooperation for the Gulf and Indian stakeholders, especially in the healthcare and health insurance sector. "There are certain challenges in healthcare and pharmaceutical industries and we have to overcome them. The respective governments should address the handicaps in this promising sector," he said. Kavungal, who is also assistant vice president of Marsh Saudi Arabia of the New York-based global risk management consultants Marsh Inc., said that the B2B sessions of the forum were very fruitful for the potential investors. "Taking part in discussions in B2B session with the leading Indian healthcare providers, I made a suggestion to create a coordination committee of all the major Indian private hospitals like Apollo, and SIMS and arrange meetings with insurance companies in the Kingdom so that the latter can transfer patients to India especially for surgeries, considering the fact that a bypass surgery that costs around SR40,000 in KSA can be done at a cost of less than SR15,000 in India. The delegates appreciated the suggestion and promised that they will work toward that and will be in touch with the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) in this regard. Haridas Pantheeradi, director of CII Gulf, Middle East and North Africa, said that the B2B business meetings were very fruitful as most of the GCC business leaders and investors got the opportunity to have close contacts and interaction with their Indian counterparts and this most probably be materialized in concrete business tie ups and joint ventures in future, he said. "The immediate outcome of B2B was the finalization of a memorandum of understanding by GCC and Indian businessmen. The first ever interaction of businesswomen and entrepreneurs from both sides was another highlight of the forum," said Pantheeradi, who was one of the prominent figures in charge of organizing the event, representing CII. GCC, India will create joint investment company The Jeddah declaration, adopted by the 4th GCC-India Industrial Forum, decided to establish a GCC-India joint investment company whose capital would be finalized later. Another decision was to activate talks for signing free trade agreement between the two sides. The forum will be organized on an annual basis and India will host the 5th forum in 2016. Another major decision was to embrace Indian expertise in IT and telecommunications in developing private sector and finding solutions to the problems of small and medium enterprises. It has also been decided to establish cooperation between the private sectors of GCC and India in different sectoral business activities. Continuous exchange of business delegations and the usage of the up-to-date technology for the development of trade between both regions is another decision. Collaboration in the field of healthcare will be strengthened and investment opportunities in all fields, especially in human resources and free zones from both sides will be tapped to the maximum. A committee comprising representatives of FGCCC and CII will be created to activate and finalize proposals made in the declaration as well as to unify the data and statistical information between GCC and India.
