From the period 2000-March 2020, The Netherlands has invested a total of USD 33.85 billion and is the fourth largest investor in India. In 2017-2018, Netherlands emerged as the third largest investor in India. This is mainly because the Dutch considers India as a ‘priority country’ for economic engagement.
To understand the challenges the Dutch countries face in India and to also know their success stories, The Free Press Journal and SIES in association with Invest India are organising a webinar series ‘Financing India- focus country is Netherlands’ on December 10, 2020, 3.30 onwards.
The panellists for the last session of the ‘Financing India’ webinar series (in alphabetical order) are Vikas Chaturvedi, CEO, Valuecent Consultancy; Preet Dhupar, CFO, IKEA India; Victor Eveleens, Partner / Director Trade (Technology & Performance Materials), NXT Group of Companies; and Bart de Jong, Consul General of the Netherlands in Mumbai.
As per DPIIT (Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade) data, due to a sudden spike in investments from the United States and Cayman Islands (April-September 2020), the Netherlands has become the fifth largest investor. But the country's investment in India has been growing.
According to UNCTAD's 2020 World Investment Report, the Netherlands itself attracted USD 114 billion investment and was the third largest FDI recipient economy in 2018. Whereas India, in 2018, attracted USD 42 billion and was the 12th largest FDI recipient economy in the world.
While the Netherlands’ FDI outflow witnessed a decline in 2018, the country continued to maintain its investment levels in India, maybe invested more. The Netherlands was the third largest investor in India for the financial year 2019-2020 with FDI inflows of USD 6.5 billion. It is also one of the top countries that attract India's FDI outflow too.
Major Dutch companies like Royal Dutch Shell, Unilever, Philips, Akzo Nobel, DSM, KLM, Ingka Group and Rabobank among others have invested in India. There are over 200 Dutch companies present in India. India’s IT heavyweights like TCS, HCL, Wipro, Infosys and Tech Mahindra are also present in the Netherlands.
Both countries have strong bilateral relations and it continues even today. There were many high-level visits which included state visits of the King and Queen of the Netherlands, visits by Prime Ministers of both countries, large delegations visits and other visits.
The bilateral trade between both countries stood at USD 12.87 billion during FY 2018-2019. The Netherlands was India’s fourth largest trading partner in the European Union.
