Press Release
Press Release: India-Hubei(Wuhan) Investment Seminar and Round table on Tourism Cooperation

On occasion of first anniversary of Informal Summit between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and President Xi Jinping in Wuhan last year, the Embassy of India, with support of Wuhan Municipal Government (Foreign Affairs Office, Economy & Information Technology Bureau, and Commerce Bureau) and Foreign Affairs office of Hubei Provincial government, organized a business seminar in Wuhan on 30 April 2019 informing investors of the province of investment opportunities in India, and exploring cooperation based of complementarities between Indian IT companies and Hubei-based industries. The seminar was attended by around 250 delegates from more than 150 companies, mostly from automobile, equipment manufacturing, engineering, logistics, food & beverage, power equipment, textiles, media etc. based in Hubei province, as well as media personnel and government officials. Delivering the key note speech Mr Vikram Misri, Ambassador of India to China conveyed that India and China should benefit from each other’s complementary strengths. He mentioned that as Wuhan played excellent host to the Informal Summit, Wuhan and Hubei based businesses have goodwill advantage to be facilitated for their investment endeavours in India. He also mentioned that India is known for its IT talents and effective IT solution provider world over and industries in Hubei province should collaborate with Indian IT companies to enhance their production efficiencies. He informed that the Embassy is working with Wuhan city government and Hubei provincial government to harness the potential for greater trade and investment ties, for greater people-to-people exchanges, for greater tourism flows and for greater cultural exchanges between India and Hubei province. He also informed that India has liberalised its visa policy for Chinese business travellers by offering one year multiple entry electronic visa. Ms Xu Honglan, Vice Mayor of Wuhan informed about Wuhan’s industrial strength and called for more cooperation between industries of two sides.

Mr Rajesh Parihar, First Secretary of the Embassy of India made a presentation on historical transformation process Indian economy is going through and investment opportunities arising out of this. He highlighted salient high points of Indian economy, overall FDI policy of the government of India, recent tax reforms, and measures undertaken by the government to make India best place to do business in. Mr James Li of NIIT China highlighted possibilities in cooperation in IT education between India and China. Mr Sujit Chatterjee of Indian company Zeta-V gave a presentation on the concept of NASSCOM IT Corridors, and a demo of Sino India Digital Collaborative Plaza or SIDCOP highlighting its features and benefits for Hubei based industries. A Cooperation Framework Agreement was signed between Zeta-V and Wuhan Software Association to further explore the cooperation. A presentation was also made on overview of regulatory and legal framework in India.

With a pitch to enhance people to people exchanges and attract more tourist from Hubei to India, the Embassy also organized a tourism roundtable with support of Wuhan Municipal government (FAO & Culture and Tourism Bureau), in Zhongnan Theatre of Wuhan in the afternoon of 30 April 2019. The roundtable was attended by about 80 representatives from 60 travel agencies of Hubei province. Mr Acquino Vimal, Deputy Chief of Mission mentioned that India and China are old civilizations and there is immense desire of our people to explore each-others civilizational past, cultural heritage, and we should be encouraged and supported by tourism industries of both sides. He also informed the audience that the Embassy has aligned its tourism strategy to the needs of Chinese tourists, identified bottlenecks and working to remove them. Mr Li Tao, Vice Secretary General of Wuhan Municipal government said emphasized that two sides should work together to implement our leader’s consensus of greater people to people exchanges by supporting tourism promotion initiatives of each other. A presentation was made on e-visa facility for Chinese tourists going to India, and highlighted India’s tourism offerings for Chinese tourists, Ms Sophia of Vini Global shared Vini Company’s experience facilitating Chinese outbound tourism to India, encouraging participating travel agencies to follow its path.

(30 April 2019, Wuhan)