Luxembourg comes calling

(From left) Jhangoo Daruwalla, Honorary Consul of Luxembourg for South India; Gaston Stronck, Luxembourg Ambassador; Sujith Haridas, regional director, CII-SR; and Ambi Venkataraman, Honorary Consul General of India in Luxembourg, at a meeting in Chennai on Tuesday. Photo: S.R. Raghunathan

Roadshows will be held in major Indian cities to create awareness about Luxembourg as an international hub of investment funds and increase trade relations with India, said Luxembourg officials on Tuesday.

Talking to The Hindu , Ambi Venkataraman, Honorary Consul General of India to Luxembourg, said that for the first time they were bringing in Association of Luxembourg Fund Industry and Luxembourg for Finance to educate Indian investors on investment potential and opportunities.

“Though the Luxembourg Investment Fund size is 200 billion Euros, India accounts for just two per cent of it. The investment opportunities are huge. While Mauritius, an offshore investment destination, accounted for 45 per cent of India's Foreign Direct Investment in 2010. Luxembourg, an onshore destination contributed less and we want this number to increase,” he said.

Mr. Venkataraman, who started selling automotive and industrial related Indian products in Luxembourg since 1985, described it as a politically stable country with favourable business environment and had low tax base.

Addressing an interactive session organised by the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII), Gaston Stronck, Luxembourg Ambassador to India, said his role was to attract India businessmen to create investment funds in Luxembourg.

While two out of three investment funds in other countries belonged to Luxembourg, it was one out of three in India and their goal was to increase it to beyond 50 to 75 per cent.

Mentioning that 150 Indian companies were listed on the Luxembourg Stock Exchange, he said they could access foreign capital markets by setting up an investment fund in Luxembourg individually or as a consortium. Besides, Luxembourg was also a good place to manage acquisitions.

According to him, Luxembourg was ready to offer technologies to India in steel, coke production, car components, space research, ICT and security among others, while India had lots of products to offer that could be marketed through Luxembourg and in Europe.

Jhangoo Daruwalla, Honorary Consul of Luxembourg for South India, said that cargo flights between Chennai and Luxembourg would be introduced in the next few months and there was a proposal soon to open visa facilitation wing in Chennai by joining hands with VFS Global Services.