Piyush Goyal highlights India-Switzerland partnership at Global Innovation Meet

Jun 12, 2026

New Delhi, June 12, 2026 (ANI) At the closing session of the 5th Annual Meeting of the India Global Innovation Connect, Union Minister of Commerce & Industry Piyush Goyal says, "Switzerland amd India share a very special relationship and having entered into the free trade agreement with the EFTA countries... It's very appropriate that Swiss companies and Indian companies get a platform to be able to engage with each other and build partnerships... we have a very clear roadmap and a stated goal to make India a developed country by 2047... At that point of time, I would think the Indian economy should be anywhere in the ballpark of about $30 trillion... This will not be possible unless we expand our international engagement... ensure that we have a high level ecosystem to promote new technologies, work with the rest of the world on global standards of quality... and we can also play an important role in global trade. Considering all of this, we recognize that large parts of the world, Europe, US, Canada, Israel, Gulf countries, Australia and New Zealand are no threat to India and its businesses... They have aging populations and therefore need of young talent and skill, which India has in abundance... Cost of production, cost of research and development in these developed economies is becoming prohibitively high... therefore, a partnership between India and such developed countries complement each other rather than compete with..." He adds, "We've entered into 9 free trade agreements in the last 3-3.5 years. These cover 38 countries, significantly richer and more prosperous than India... offering to them a large Indian market, a growing demand with 1.4 billion aspirational Indians... They also have significant capital, pools of capital, which they want to deploy. And India is a perfect opportunity."