A Defining Moment For Indo-German Partnership

India and Germany have shared a collaborative relationship for more than 70 years. Today, there are more than 1600 Indo-German collaborations and over 600 Indo-German Joint Ventures fuelling one of the most exceptional bilateral partnerships in the world. The pandemic has undoubtedly created a deep shift in the global dynamics, and India is now being looked at as the new alternative. 

Many European businesses, particularly in Germany, are looking at long-term options to build supply chain capabilities as well as their manufacturing hubs in India, recreating what they did in China in the past. Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s recent visit has been monumental in reinforcing a stronger Indo-German business network that would tap into India’s niche tech talent, scale up in areas like green tech and renewable energy as well as drive more investments to bank on the capabilities of Digital India.

As the world’s Top 5 startup ecosystems, India and Germany have shared synergies in fuelling entrepreneurship. 

The Indian states of Maharashtra and Karnataka have had sister state relationships with Baden Wurttemberg and Bavaria for nearly 50 years. Efforts are now on to bring in other German states into this matrix with North Rhine Westphalia developing a relationship with West Bengal, as Thuringia also looks at India. Like Germany where Berlin, Munich, the metropolitan region Rhein-Rhur and Hamburg dominate the startup landscape, the bigger cities in India like Bangalore, Mumbai and Delhi are the drivers behind the startup success story of the country. In fact, more than 40 per cent of German startups are located in these Indian hubs.

It is worth calling out the contribution of programmes like German Indian Startup Exchange and Next Step India by German Accelerator for offering brilliant platforms for the startup community from both countries to plan their expansion and facilitate partnerships between both countries. 

Another area where India and Germany can and need to actively collaborate is Sustainability. Last year Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced Green and Sustainable Development Partnership during his visit to Germany. Through this, both the countries agreed to expand cooperation in the areas of Climate Action and Sustainable Development Goals as well as work together in areas like Renewable Energy, Green Hydrogen and biofuels. 

While Germany’s huge green startup sector can play an important role in India and can bring new technologies to India, especially in sectors like agriculture and agribusiness, energy, textile, consumer goods and nutrition and food, where most German green startups are active, several Indian eco-entrepreneurs are well poised to empower businesses on both sides to achieve zero waste across the waste value chain to enable the circular economy, with transparency and traceability. 

The Indo-German partnership remains at an all-time high and brings together the best of German engineering and Indian entrepreneurship. Businesses on both countries are poised to benefit from this unique combination and leverage opportunities for both India and Germany to cross-pollinate and collaborate to create impact and explore newer avenues for scaling up in the new world order.