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Honourable Chief-Minister of Maharashtra,
Honourable Minister for Economy and Innovation of Portugal,
Mister President of the Bombay Chamber of Commerce and Industry,
Mister President of the Indo-Portuguese Business Committee,
Distinguished businessmen and guests,

I would like to begin by congratulating the Bombay Chamber of Commerce and Industry for this excellent initiative, the organisation of this economic seminar, in conjunction with the Portuguese foreign trade and investment agencies.

The history of the Bombay Chamber of Commerce and Industry, which has already celebrated its 170th anniversary, is intimately linked to the history of the city’s development and to the modernisation of the region’s operating structures.

The Chamber represents over 1,700 large and medium enterprises headquartered in Mumbai, which generate nearly one third of the Indian gross domestic product in manufacturing and services. It is with pleasure that I note that the Chamber allies a markedly professional promotion of the interests of its members with a wide-ranging vision of economic and social issues.

In the few days since my arrival in India I have been able to witness the energy, the talent and the creativity that have left their mark on the country’s economic performance over recent years. This has led to one of the world’s fastest rates of growth and to profound economic and social transformations that bear witness to the emergence of a “New India”.

This energy and sense of rapid change can be felt in a particularly lively way in this enormous metropolis of Mumbai, the commercial, industrial and financial capital of India, and the most populous and cosmopolitan of its cities. As the great hub of the Indian services industry – from IT Enabled Services and Business Process Outsourcing to the film industry –, accounting for almost half of India’s foreign trade, Mumbai is one of the country’s most dynamic business centres and an extraordinary pole of development.

This leads me to further underline the opportunity that this Seminar represents. By enhancing a greater knowledge of what is currently being done in India and in Portugal and by enabling closer contacts between Indian and Portuguese entrepreneurs and senior officials, it contributes to strengthen business relations and economic ties between our two countries.

India and Portugal enjoy excellent political relations, a contractual framework based on a good foundation of agreements and protocols in different areas, and an undeniable historic and cultural proximity. Even so, and notwithstanding several examples of success that deserve to be praised and encouraged, our relations in trade and in bilateral co-operation stand far below their potential and, I would say, far below what might reasonably be expected.

Building up a relationship with a future in the 21st century between Portugal and India calls for further mobilising, in a more articulated fashion, the will of the economic, political and cultural communities. It also calls for providing the conditions that allow opportunities to be better known, communication to improve and business to materialize.

The subject of this Seminar and the way in which the work has been organised are therefore particularly appropriate.

The business delegation that accompanies me on this visit represent a number of the most dynamic and renowned sectors of the Portuguese economy – from information technologies, robotics and communication to biotechnologies, tourism and banking services, not forgetting engineering, moulds and construction. It comprises top managers of companies, many of which have an international presence and a global vocation, selected for their interest in India or in the establishment of future partnerships with Indian companies. And, certainly, they share with their counterparts present here a strategic vision and a corporate mindset turned to the world and towards the future.

These companies clearly illustrate the Portugal of this century, a modern, safe, welcoming country, an open economy provided with excellent infrastructures, a highly-developed financial system and a business community increasingly geared to innovation and to internationalisation. Companies whose reputation, international experience and expertise place them in a good position to meet many of the co-operation and investment requirements associated with the present stage of development of the Indian economy. In fact, investment in infrastructure is unanimously pointed out as a key challenge to the country’s recent pace of economic growth and plays a crucial role in the preservation of the productive and urban dynamics and of the competitive capacity of large cities such as Mumbai.

As a result of Portugal’s close relations with Africa and Latin America, Portuguese companies have invested heavily in these economies, particularly in the Portuguese-speaking countries (a language that is spoken by more than 200 million people around the five continents).

As a Member State of the European Union, Portugal – under whose presidency and at whose initiative, it should be recalled, the EU-India Summit was launched – is also a platform that provides access to a consolidated market of 500 million consumers. Portugal is one of the founding countries of the euro area and, as such, has strong financial discipline and stability standards, and a macroeconomic and regulatory framework favourable to foreign investment.

Portugal is an enterprising, self-confident country, able to multiply centres of scientific and corporate creativity and to make its mark as a country of opportunities. A country that knows well that the future will largely depend on its capacity to create wealth based on innovation and on knowledge. And a country that sees India’s economic and political emergence as a natural process, in view of the country’s huge resources and potential and its ambition to ensure fast, sustainable growth.

The increasingly global world in which we live is a highly competitive one, and this includes goods and services that, until quite recently, were considered as non-tradable. It is also, however, a world of growing interdependencies, in which discovery and integration of knowledge dispersed throughout the globe increasingly tend to act as a source of new competitive advantages for companies.

This, indeed, is the challenge of the knowledge-based society, which emerges today in an ever clearer manner and opens up a whole new frontier of possibilities and mutual advantages.

Portugal and Portuguese companies have a great deal to offer India. And India surely has much to offer Portugal. There is, I believe, much more that the two countries should and can do together.

I am certain that the works of this Seminar will make a determinant contribution, enabling Indian and Portuguese business leaders to discover and explore, to their mutual benefit, new gateways to a journey together on the way to the future. I can only wish the greatest success for you all.