Virtual Meeting - Initiative by our Business Advisory leadership forum and Northern India Chapter

Date : 10 July 2024

Ms. Petula Thomas, CEO, IACC delivered welcome remarks, setting the context and the objectives of this leadership forum that was launched last July at the Australian High Commission, New Delhi.

Ambassador Anil Wadhwa, Chairperson of IACC’s Northern India Chapter highlighted the main sectors where there are huge opportunities to further enhance collaboration/trade diversification between India and Australia. Among other points, Ambassador Wadhwa emphasised that India has the manufacturing scale and demand growth which can rival China's dominance in global solar policies, collaboration in defence, research & development and manufacturing between Indian Shipyards and Australian Ship building industries, as well as between our space agencies and private players. He also spoke about the opportunity for both countries to enhance collaboration in areas like capacity building and vocational training, that requires recognized degrees, hiring of skill professional caretakers such as healthcare workers and nurses.

The Co-chairs of our ‘Business Advisory Forum, Pratik Jain, Lead Partner, PwC and Geoff Alcock, Managing Director, MSS Security presented on ‘Thinking about growth in India’ and spoke about the ‘’Make in India initiative supported through regulatory reforms, digitized systems and progressive policies catalyzing industrial and infrastructure development, States in India offering varied initiatives over and above those by the Govt of India as well as undertaking multi-pronged approaches to attract GCC’s through sectoral policy interventions, fostering high -end talent and boosting research- oriented ecosystem.

This was followed by an interactive Q&A session that was moderated by Ms Thomas.