[INTERVIEW] Indian envoy hopes to explore new areas of … – Aju Business Daily – FilmyVoice

Amit Kumar, the Indian Ambassador to South Korea [Photograph by Park Sae-jin = swatchsjp@ajunews.com]

SEOUL — India is able to uncover new areas of financial cooperation with South Korea as the 2 nations’ financial ties have steadily elevated for the final 50 years, with each nations recognizing the immense potential for collaboration and partnership. Indian envoy to South Korea Amit Kumar confidently mentioned cooperation in inexperienced hydrogen, electrical car, digital transformation, and prescription drugs would profit one another.
 
Based on knowledge launched by the Ministry of Commerce, Business and Power, South Korea’s exports to India reached $18.8 billion in 2022, up 21 p.c from a 12 months in the past whereas imports rose 10.5 p.c year-on-year to $8.9 billion from $2.6 billion. South Korea’s primary export merchandise embrace semiconductors and metal plates, whereas import objects had been petroleum merchandise and aluminum. ​Gross sales of Hyundai Motor and Kia autos in India even have elevated for greater than 12 consecutive months. Collected gross sales of Hyundai and Kia vehicles in India within the first 4 months of 2023 stood at 295,359 items, up 15.5 p.c from the identical interval a 12 months in the past. 

South Korea’s quantity of commerce with India skyrocketed to $20.5 billion in 2011 from $2.6 billion in 2002. Ambassador Kumar mentioned the 2 nations’ complete financial partnership settlement (CEPA) which took impact in 2010, performed an important position in facilitating bilateral commerce. “India as we speak is the fifth largest economic system and South Korea is the tenth largest economic system. I believe it implies that we ought to be partaking extra on the financial and business aspect,” the veteran diplomat instructed Aju Enterprise Day by day on June 7. Kumar confused that financial and commerce sectors would be capable of obtain $50 billion in commerce quantity by 2030. 
 
The envoy additionally urged that South Korean corporations together with Samsung and Hyundai auto group have benefited from Indian human sources. “Kakao, Naver, and Coupang have a lot of engineers working for them. Coupang is a little bit totally different as a result of additionally they have senior administration professionals from India who’re working,” he mentioned, including that many Indian college students attending South Korean universities are searching for to discover a job after finishing their research. 
 
The ambassador mentioned about 4,500 college students are finding out STEM (specializing in science, know-how, and arithmetic (STEM)-related fields and about 1,000 of them are on the undergraduate degree and the remaining are pursuing extra schooling on the postgraduate degree or conducting superior analysis as analysis fellows. “A few of them are additionally engaged in superior areas like photonics analysis or quantum mechanics and so forth,” the envoy mentioned.
 
The banking sector additionally performs a significant position in deepening financial cooperation, supporting South Korean enterprise entry into India, and finance-related tasks. South Korean banks, comparable to KEB Hanna Financial institution, Shinhan Financial institution, and Woori Financial institution, have already entered the Indian market.
 
“All the foremost banks are already offered and teams like Mirae Asset have completed exceedingly properly,” the envoy added. The South Korean monetary administration group’s administration property in India reached 21 trillion gained ($16.4 billion), which elevated by 100 occasions from the institution of the Indian department in 2008.
 
Kumar hopes to additional strengthen their partnership by exploring new areas of cooperation. “Inexperienced power transition points, electrical autos, secondary batteries, inexperienced hydrogen, these are once more, areas the place there’s big potential,” the diplomat mentioned. “I might maybe say that, in relation to inexperienced hydrogen, most likely South Korea is correct there on the prime together with Japan and Germany when it comes to what they’ve achieved up to now.”
 
Inexperienced hydrogen, which makes use of electrolysis to separate water and launch solely hydrogen and oxygen, is considered an necessary a part of a sustainable ecosystem. Seoul has accelerated the adoption of hydrogen and electrical buses as a part of its eco-friendly mission that goals to function some 1,000 hydrogen buses and construct 11 hydrogen fueling stations by 2025.
 
Kumar additionally talked about incentives which are offered in 14 sectors in India. “There are a number of areas the place Korean corporations will discover alternatives in India to work,” he defined, stating {that a} whole of $40 billion value of incentives are provided for worldwide corporations relying on their manufacturing quantity. 
 
The Indian envoy thinks the 2 nations may cooperate within the startup sector. The variety of startups in his nation skyrocketed to about 90,000 in 2023 from 100 in 2016. “We now have just a few cities which are rising as hubs for startups in particular industries like biotechnology or prescription drugs,” Kumar defined that the rising areas embrace Delhi, Bangalore, and Hyderabad.
 
The veteran diplomat thinks cultural exchanges within the leisure area improved bilateral relations. He highlighted Anupam Tripathi, an actor who performed the position of a migrant employee named “Ali” on the Netflix sequence Squid Recreation. The South Korean hit, launched in September 2021, was watched by some 111 million households around the globe solely 28 days after its launch, beating Bridgerton with about 82 million. 
 
“India’s Panorama Studios and South Korea’s Anthology Studios have joined fingers to remake the Indian film ‘Drishyam’ within the Korean language,” Kumar launched the 2015 Indian movie which depicts the story of a person who tries to guard his household who dedicated a criminal offense. The film gained greater than $50 million in revenue.
 
Many Indian artists are additionally energetic within the South Korean music scene. Sriya Lenka, a 19-year-old Indian singer is a member of a multinational Okay-pop woman band Black Swan. Priyanka, a 25-year-old Indian artist is a part of Z-Ladies, a seven-member woman band consisting of 4 non-South Korean members. Gauthami, a 20-year-old artist identified by her stage identify “Aria” is a member of X:IN, a rookie woman band that debuted in April 2023.  
 
At a summit assembly held in Could 2023, South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi agreed to strengthen cooperation in high-tech sectors, together with bio-health, area, and protection. In 2017, South Korea’s Hanwha Techwin signed a $646 million three way partnership contract to produce 100 items of its modified 155mm Okay-9 tracked self-propelled howitzer to the Indian military. In the course of the assembly, Yoon requested Modi to make sure correct tariff requirements for South Korean corporations in India.