Korea-India economic hotline ‘CEO Forum’ launched

Jeansun Kim
Whowired.com
19 May 2015

Korea and India launched a business hot line for companies in both countries named as ‘CEO Forum.’ The forum was launched after a year-long preparation after President Park Geun-hye’s visit to India last January.

The Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy held a Korea-India CEO Forum at Seoul Lotte Hotel on May 19 with its Indian counterparts and other relevant parties attended. The forum’s co-chair will be taken by India’s largest Aditya Birla Group Chairman Kumar Mangalam Birla and Doosan Group Chairman Park Yong-man.

They held a pre-meeting session before the CEO Forum and exchanged opinions and ideas about the business environment in both countries. They agreed that the business people should do more to Asia’s third and fourth largest economies to build fittingly strong economic ties under Indian government’s slogan “Make in India.”

The target of Modi administration is to c;reate 100 million jobs raising the proportion of manufacturing industry from 15% of GDP to 25% by 2022 drawing investment in 25 core industries including cars, electronics, new regenerative energy, power generation, and chemical engineering.

Korean business people called for the Indian government to build systematic infrastructure to facilitate administrative procedures. Indian car market reached an average annual growth rate of 11.6% over the past 10 years to rank 6th in terms of production and sales, emerging as blue ocean to both the large conglomerates and small subcontractors.

At the one-on-one business meeting, more than 60 companies from both countries joined to discuss about M&;A and joint investment opportunities, manufacturing contracts, and trade and technology partnerships. MOTIE has been diversifying the scope of bilateral cooperation signing a MOU covering power, regenerative energy, and industry areas.