Berne, June 10 (IANS) Commerce and Industry Minister Piyush Goyal on Tuesday co-chaired a productive Business Roundtable on the Machinery, Electrical & Metal (MEM) Industry with Swiss Federal Councillor Guy Parmelin.

Goyal said that he discussed boosting innovation, facilitating partnerships, and joint workforce training with Parmelin, who is also the Head of Switzerland’s Federal Department of Economic Affairs, Education and Research (EAER)

“We also focused on unlocking new investment opportunities post operationalisation of the India-EFTA TEPA,” Goyal said in a statement on X.

The Minister chaired two focused roundtables with sectoral leaders from Swiss industry, covering biotech & pharma, healthcare, precision engineering, defence, and emerging technologies. These sessions highlighted India’s scale, affordability, and rising innovation ecosystem.

The Minister called on Swiss businesses to leverage the dedicated EFTA Desk at Invest India for handholding and facilitation support. He reiterated India’s willingness to work towards regulatory harmonisation and mutual recognition agreements, highlighting India’s proactive stance on building reciprocal bridges to encourage Swiss and Indian investments.

Besides, the Commerce Minister witnessed the signing of an MoU between the Indian business chamber ASSOCHAM and Swissmem to strengthen industrial collaboration, foster innovation, growth, and skill development.

Swissmem is the leading association for SMEs and large companies in Switzerland’s technology industry (mechanical and electrical engineering and related technology sectors).

The objective of the MoU also includes cooperation in areas like technical transfer, economic cooperation, investment opportunities, trade fairs, exhibitions, policies, and economic legislation pertaining to the foreign trade of the two countries.

Both the industry bodies would also support each other in exchange for trade missions, project study groups, import, export, trade and investment linkages.

The areas of Cooperation also include exploring and organising joint activities to promote trade and investment opportunities in the interest of members of both organisations.

In addition to industry interactions, Goyal also met members of the Switzerland Chapter of the Institute of Chartered Accountants of India (ICAI). He lauded the chapter for its contributions and for upholding the high standards and global reputation of the ICAI, while strengthening the India–Switzerland professional and business ecosystem.

–IANS

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