India looks to engage its global community

It's seven years since India created a specialist centre to engage with Indians living overseas. Ian Halstead finds out more.

Around 20 million Indians are now spread across the globe, but their engagement with matters back home is usually only around friends and family.

However, if business and commercial links could be established with significant numbers of those individuals, they would form a powerful source of investment for India’s expanding economy.

With this mission in mind, India’s Ministry of Overseas Indian Affairs have set up the Overseas Indian Facilitation Centre (OIFC), a public private partnership, in association with the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII).

The original concept for the OIFC was to provide a single point of contact for Indians living overseas, to deepen their economic and intellectual engagement with India, to assist states looking to attract backing for their projects and to provide an advisory service.

The philosophy hasn’t changed, but the new administration has been swift to increase the Centre’s resources, underlining its determination to make the diaspora a core element of its development agenda.

OIFC Chairman Prem Narain says the organisation will work with the UK India Business Council to address queries from its members relating to doing business in India, and by setting up one-to-one discussions between NRI business people in the UK and the Indian government.

“I am confident that this partnership will help the UK diaspora to engage gainfully with India. The OIFC is working relentlessly on several fronts: answering queries, organising meetings and other events, assisting in information exchange and connecting people to the right channels,” he says.

“We believe that overseas Indians should become part of India’s development agenda, particularly as ‘ease of business’ has become the new mantra of our Government. I can also assure everyone that myself, Charu Mathur and every member of our team will offer continued commitment to the cause of investors.”

Charu Mathur, a senior director with 17 years of experience at the CII, has been brought in as CEO of OIFC to drive the organisation forward, and her approach is clear.
“My priority is to strengthen OIFC’s reach, and establish new avenues of engagement with the global diaspora through strategic inputs from our Governing Council,” she says.

OIFC’s activities are dovetailed with Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s determination to make India a businessfriendly country, and to strengthen links with countries keen to play a central role in its economic expansion.

It’s also clear that significant expectations are being placed upon Mathur, not least through hopes that overseas Indians will invest in some of India’s biggest infrastructure projects, notably the Delhi-Mumbai Industrial Corridor and the ‘smart cities’ programme.

The OIFC’s web site – www.oifc.in – already acts as a business networking portal; featuring an ‘Ask the Expert’ element, details of almost 250 state-level projects looking to attract overseas investment, and regular online webinars involving its partners and Indians overseas, which have been remarkably popular.

Now though, the OIFC is looking to further enhance its economic engagement with its UK-based diaspora, through a formal relationship with the UKIBC.

A Memorandum of Understanding was signed in late-October 2014, signifying the start of mutual co-operation between the two bodies, leading to higher levels of information and data exchange, and increasing awareness about business opportunities for inward investors.

What next?
Contact the UK India Business Council helpline on 0800 0196 176 for more information about doing business in India