Potential deals discussed between Sheffield City Region and India

A virtual roundtable brought together the Sheffield City Region Mayor Dan Jarvis MP and Murlidhar Mohol, mayor of Pune. A second purely business-focused event was also held, involving a number of South Yorkshire businesses and the Mahratta Chamber of Commerce, Industries and Agriculture and its director general, Prashant Girbane.

The two delegations discussed a range of areas including active and urban transport systems, trade, investment and business partnerships.

A spokesperson said there was a particular focus on the transfer of knowledge and technology between industries, research institutions and universities. The discussion concluded with an invitation to Pune from Mayor Mohol and a reciprocal invitation to South Yorkshire from Mayor Jarvis.

Sheffield City Region Mayor Dan Jarvis MP said: “This was a most productive discussion covering a number of critically important topics both for our region and for Pune. It’s exciting to look at ways we could collaborate and share expertise as part of building good and long-standing relationships with the Maharashtra region of India.”

Sir Nigel Knowles, International Advisor to the Mayor of the Sheffield City Region, said: “This Roundtable was a great opportunity for some prominent local businesses to build relationships with contacts that could be useful to them in the Maharashtra region of India. There were some great discussions about how participants in the India Growth Champion Scheme could work with partners in India, which of course makes it all so worthwhile.”

He added: “India offers huge potential in the digitisation of advanced manufacturing and shares many industrial synergies with our region. We hope this will be just the start of a series of Roundtable discussions, for mutual benefit.”

In the UKIBC’s recent Doing Business in India Report 2020, 66 per cent of businesses surveyed said they believed it was becoming easier to trade with India, thanks to progressive reforms and improvements in components of India’s business environment such as the availability of support and service providers, skilled labour, and supply chain.