Apparel December 2019 | Page 95

INDUSTRY INSIGHTS driven by private sector, the government will do its bit to ‘crowd-in’. In undertaking all these reforms, the government will work with an open mind in consultation with all stakeholders.” Falling in line with Modi’s vision and plans for India, the Czech Republic has revealed its motive to partner with Indian MSMEs for skill-transfer and digitalisation. POLICY-CHECK The Ambassador of Czech Republic to India, Milan Hovorka, has declared the above plan, also mentioning that the Czech Republic is aiming to receive over 1,00,000 Indian tourists by 2019–20. In 2014, a report by the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) and Deloitte highlighted how Central European countries have been important trade partners of India over the years. The volume of the total trade between the two regions has grown exponentially over time, even during adverse global economic conditions. To add more traction to this historic growth that both these countries witnessed in the last decade, CII constituted a regional committee on Central Europe. This committee especially looks at strengthening India’s engagement with Central Europe through two-way trade and investment, and it aims to develop ‘Brand India’ in the Central European region. To raise the bar for such strategic tie-ups, an official 10-member small and medium enterprises (SME) delegation from Czech Republic has now submitted its proposal to seek partnerships with Indian SMEs in the sectors of textile, travel and hospitality, biotechnology, and e-commerce. CENTRAL EUROPEAN COUNTRIES HAVE BEEN IMPORTANT TRADE PARTNERS OF INDIA OVER THE YEARS. While announcing the deal, Vinod Kumar, President, India SME Forum, mentioned that the scale of digital transformation that this country presents is tremendous and that greater digitisation of MSMEs has the potential to triple the sector’s GDP contribution, taking it way above the current eight per cent. This will also heighten employment opportunities for India’s APPAREL I December 2019 I 93