The focus during Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to France may be on defence, but the two countries are poised to take giant strides in cooperation in areas such as the digital economy, manufacturing and clean energy, including developments related to the 9,900 MW Jaitapur nuclear power plant. plant in Maharashtra.
The India-France CEO Forum has also been revived after five years and will meet on July 14 at the Quai d’Orsay, the office of the Ministry of External Affairs, with 10-12 business leaders from both sides. While the Indian side will be co-chaired by Hari Bhartia, co-chairman of Jubilant Bhartia Group, the French side will be led by Paul Hermelin, chairman of information company Capgemini SE.
Hermilin was also appointed by the French government as the person in charge of trade and commerce with India. Capgemini employs around 200,000 people in India and is set to open a 6G lab in Pune. Bilateral trade between India and France has doubled to €14 billion since 2014 with the balance in favor of India.
A big ticket item currently in the works between the two countries is the possible launch of the Unified Payments Interface, or UPI, digital payment technology in France by Modi during his two-day visit. In 2023, UPI and Singapore’s PayNow signed an agreement that allows users in both countries to make cross-border transactions. If Macron’s government agrees to do the same with UPI NPCI, the company behind UPI, and France’s Lyra have been working on it for a year then France will become the first European country to have UPI. It is understood that if all the agreements are concluded in time, the link will be launched by PM Modi from the iconic location in Paris.
Another major focus of PM Modi’s visit will be clean energy; it was from Paris that he founded the international solar alliance in 2015, which today has 100 member countries. This time the focus will be on green hydrogen, renewable sources, batteries and small modular reactors. In this context, the two sides also made significant progress on the 1,650 x 6 MW Jaitapur nuclear power plant project and gave impetus to technical discussions on the 8,000-page techno-commercial proposal submitted by France in 2019. It is understood that the exercise will soon to come to fruition and the plant will become a reality under the Bilateral Clean Energy Initiative.
The French are also open to technology transfer and want to get French companies to diversify their manufacturing and supply footprints, and view India as an alternative global supply chain hub to China.
France is also ready to collaborate with India for EXAScale computing. France has been India’s partner in supercomputing and technology sharing in the past.
