“Raisina Dialogue is an opportunity to discuss global, economic challenges”: Austrian Minister

Austrian Labour Minister, Martin Korcher said on Thursday that the Raisina Dialogue in India is an opportunity to discuss the global and economic challenges and reaffirmed his commitment to boost trade between the two countries.

“Always interesting to be here. The Raisina Dialogue is an opportunity to discuss global and economic challenges. We see some fragmentation signs when it comes to world trade. Geopolitical aspects were discussed and lots of foreign ministers. We have a bilateral trade volume of almost EUR 3 billion. The ties are close. There are more than 100 companies from Austria active in India. There are lots of companies from India active in Austria,” he said.

“We want to strengthen the cooperation. That’s also one of the reasons for my visit, economic cooperation, people-to-people exchange, research and technology. There are lots of areas where we have aligned interests and where companies and institutions can work more closely together,” he added.

The Austrian minister also went on to mention the ongoing negotiations on the India-Austria Free Trade Agreement (FTA) and said that this would benefit both countries in boosting trade partnership.

“Austria welcomes these negotiations. Austria is a very strongly export-oriented country, has strong ties with India and we would profit. India would profit. I think it is to the benefit of both sides for the companies, but also for the people of the European countries and India. So I hope that we’ll be able to make progress quickly,” he said.

“We have the celebration of 75 years of diplomatic relations between Austria and India this year. So it’s a very warm and friendly relationship. I’m happy about that. But of course, there’s untapped potential in the economic sphere, but also in other areas, for instance, research. So I hope that these untapped potentials can be unlocked in the future and we’ll do everything we are committed to bring the relationship forward,” he added.

Raisina Dialogue is India’s flagship conference on geopolitics and geoeconomics, committed to addressing the most challenging issues facing the global community.

The ninth edition of Raisina Dialogue is being held in Delhi from February 21-23. It is being organised by the Ministry of External Affairs in collaboration with the Observer Research Foundation.

Ministers, National Security Advisors, senior officials and representatives of industry, technology, finance and other sectors from more than 100 nations are participating in the Raisina Dialogue.

According to the Ministry of External Affairs the thematic pillars of Raisina Dialogue are – “Tech Frontiers: Regulations and Realities, Peace with the Planet: Invest and Innovate, War and Peace: Armouries and Asymmetries, Decolonising Multilateralism: Institutions and Inclusion, The Post-2030 Agenda: People and Progress.”