JOIN USPM to kick off Hannover Messe 2015
Hannover Messe, the world’s largest industrial fair, is gearing up to receive Prime Minister Narendra Modi for the grand inaugural event on Sunday, April 12, at the Hannover Congress Centre, where as the head of the government of this year’s partner country India, he gets the honours to inaugurate the event along with German Chancellor Angela Merkel.
The next day, being the first day of the event which is on from April 13 to 17, both the leaders will walk the fairgrounds where Modi will take the chancellor around to meet the 400-plus exhibitors from India, Mehul Lanvers-Shah, Managing Director, Hannover Milano Fairs India, told Deccan Herald.
India has been a Hannover Messe partner country thrice, including this year. The last partnership was in 2006, and reports said the event generated $100 million worth of trade and $25 million worth of on-the-spot buys for exhibitors, Lanvers-Shah said. In other years, trade generated for the usual 100-150 exhibitors is around $20 million to $25 million, he said.
This year, apart from the 400-plus exhibitor contingent, the Indian delegation will include around 120 chief executive officers, 100-plus central and state ministers, and bureaucrats, Lanvers-Shah said. In focus will be the Prime Minister’s Make in India initiative, with the Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion (DIPP) creating a wow campaign to attract investor interest and foreign direct investment (FDI) on the 12 foundational themes that form its core, he said.
The Hannover Milano Fairs India MD said Make in India logos and signages will wrap Hannover all over, besides other major cities like Frankfurt and Berlin.
Lanvers-Shah said that as the partner country, India will get the opportunities to highlight its promise by occupying the central area of the fairgrounds which is being designed and built in partnership with DIPP officials. Government officials will be strategically positioned here to guide interested investors on what it means to invest in localised manufacturing in India, he said. Six thousand exhibitors from over a 100 countries are expected to turn up at Hannover, with visitors from India alone likely topping 2,000, Lanvers-Shah said.
According to him, the focus themes at Hannover Messe 2015 are industrial automation and information technology; energy and environmental engineering; industrial subcontracting and production engineering; and power transmission and control.