Speech by the Ambassador at the Bishkek Investment Forum, "BIF 2015"

(2nd December 2015)

Dear Mr. Umbriel Temiraliev and friends, since I have been given just five minutes, let me come to the point straight.

There are huge opportunities for our two countries to increase trade and investment relations.

I will restrict my speech to the relevant aspects of the Indian market for the Kyrgyz Republic, which is the theme for today.

The Health Sector: Medical tourism to India is on rise. It is estimated that around 3.2 million medical tourists have visited India from all over the globe this year. This is because India offers world class treatment at affordable costs. A few Indian hospitals are active in the Kyrgyz Republic, they are organizing OPD etc. The opportunity is not only for patients but also for entrepreneurs. If serious investors from the Kyrgyz Republic come forward, it is possible to establish a joint venture super specialty hospital.

Pharmaceutical industry: India has a very well developed pharmaceutical industry. India's export in 2013 had crossed the figure of USD 11 billion. Indian pharmaceutical products are well known in Kyrgyzstan. This sector offers opportunity both for trading and investment. I personally am trying to encourage investors from both the sides to establish a joint venture. Hopefully sooner or later this will happen.

Tourism: Tourism could be another prospective area. One already sees some growth in this sector. From India roughly 15 million Indians go abroad for tourism. The figure for Kyrgyzstan are on rise. For tourism, we need to deal with two issues - direct flight and visa. Fortunately, we have direct flight connection between Bishkek and Delhi and it just takes 3 hours to reach Delhi.

Agriculture and agro-processing industry: India has made a lot of progress in the entire cycle of food processing, packaging, canning, refrigeration, thermo processing etc. We have good possibilities to establish joint ventures in this area.

Textile: India is one of the largest producers of textile and garments. Abundant availability of raw materials such as cotton, wool, silk and jute as well as skilled workforce have made the country a sourcing hub. We expect that the size of industry will be USD 300 billion by 2025. This sector contributes 14 per cent of the industrial production. The textile industry from the Kyrgyz Republic can always find lot of material to be sourced from India.

Manufacturing machinery: not much attention has been paid, but let me underline the fact that India is one of the leading countries in producing manufacturing machinery. More than 2500 firms from the engineering sector have acquired ISO 9000 certificate. They cover a wide range of area such as pharma machinery, chemical plant machinery, packaging machinery, machinery for agro-processing and so on. You can find machinery for practically all the fields.

ITEC Courses: There was mention about the human capital development. Let me inform you that we have a programme called as Indian Technical Economic Cooperation programme. Under this programme every year we send 80 to 85 working professionals from the Kyrgyz Republic to participate in various courses. There are courses on entrepreneurship development and you may avail of this opportunity.

There could be other areas of cooperation such as Information Technology, establishment of business incubation centers, establishment of entrepreneurship development centers, entertainment industry including joint production of movies. But let me be very frank with you, unless and until the Kyrgyz entrepreneurs make efforts to build such partnership this is not going to happen. I am sure that among the present, there are entrepreneurs who have travelled from Japan, South Korea to the United States but have not found time so far to visit India. My suggestion to all you all is to take the first step. Visit India. You will not regret.

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