Piyush Goyal announces India-Italy manufacturing collaboration in non-competing sectors

India and Italy have committed to strengthen co-manufacturing and co-designing in areas where the two countries are not competitors, but have complementary strengths, Piyush Goyal, the Union Minister of Commerce and Industry, said on Friday.

Addressing a joint press conference along with Antonio Tajani, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation of Italy in New Delhi, Goyal said the countries are trying to forge impactful partnerships across sectors and convert the strategic partnership into a comprehensive relationship which will significantly increase India-Italy bilateral trade from the current $15 billion (approximately ₹1.29 lakh crore).

“We have shared interests in areas like space. We are working together in the India-Middle East European Corridor, Global Biofuels Alliance, the International Solar Alliance (ISA), Coalition for Disaster Resilient Infrastructure and are making together the EU-India FTA a reality by the end of the year,” Goyal said.

Goyal added that India believes blending Italy’s design excellence—with India’s skill and scale of high quality, cost-effective products—can help bring resilience to its supply chains, expand cooperation in areas like food processing, shipbuilding, pharmaceuticals, textiles, luxury and fashion.

In his remarks, Italian deputy PM Antonio Tajani said both countries are ready for joint ventures and want to work together in Africa. “There are many sectors, machinery, agri-food, space (of mutual interest),” Tajani said. Earlier, addressing the ‘Italy-India Business, Science and Technology Forum’ meeting, Tajani said innovation, AI, supercomputers, space technology, defence are a few sectors which have potential for joint partnerships, and both countries should work to attract investments in these areas.

About 100 Italian businesspersons have accompanied Tajani to be part of this bilateral forum meeting. Both countries have agreed to convene the next joint commission for economic cooperation in Italy. Commerce Minister Goyal will be lead a large delegation of Indian businesspersons to this meeting. Goyal said the meeting could take place in the very near future, possibly in a month or two.

“The foundation has been laid, the blueprint is clear and now the time is only to invest, create and grow to a bright future,” Goyal said about the collaboration between India and Italy.