India’s Union Minister of Commerce and Industry, Piyush Goyal, made a strong speech to Swiss entrepreneurs and researchers at the Swissmem Industry Day in Switzerland. It was not an insincere ceremonial address. It was an appeal to Swiss businesses to assume a role model status as partners in making India a thirty to thirty-five trillion-dollar economy by its hundredth year of independence in 2047.
What drew the business community was not only the size of India’s vision but the unprecedented proposition of a dedicated “Swiss Enclave” in India, which would provide Swiss businesses with a bespoke operating platform of familiarity, efficiency, and policy certainty.
From Alps to Ahmedabad
Goyal’s overtures come months after India signed the much-awaited Trade and Economic Partnership Agreement (TEPA) with the European Free Trade Association (EFTA), which includes Switzerland, Norway, Iceland and Liechtenstein. The pact had remained dormant in negotiations for more than 16 years. The acronym has been given a new twist by Goyal to be a “Trust and Efficiency Partnership Agreement,” reflecting a more extensive and complex framework based on transparency, stability and complementary strengths.
“I am bringing with me the hopes of 1.4 billion Indians who aspire as much as your Alps and wish for a brighter future,” Goyal told the Swiss industrial mind. “India is young, dynamic, vibrant and full of promise today. We are here not to compete but to cooperate.”
A dedicated “Swiss Enclave”
The most revolutionary part of Goyal’s address was an offer to create a “Swiss Enclave” in India. This would be a focused industrial and innovation hub where Swiss companies could have operations with logistical facilitation, legal protection, and cultural ease. The enclave would be an operating platform for technology transfer, high-value manufacturing, and skill upgradation.
While Indian authorities have in the past launched similar enclaves for Japan and South Korea, this would be the first for a European country. India’s Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade (DPIIT) says that for such zones, investor fear is alleviated as there is clarity on land usage, taxation and conflict resolution.
Journey from 270 billion dollars to 4 trillion dollars economy
Goyal devoted much time explaining India’s post-haste infrastructure growth. In the last decade, India has built 80 new airports, including a large project with Zurich Airport. It has developed 104 new inland waterways, almost doubled port capacity and greatly enhanced national highways. The government’s current annual infrastructure spending is more than 125 billion dollars, official budget estimates show.
The Minister underlined that this kind of large investment is already generating a multiplier effect, bringing in international companies into India’s economic fold. Such size, along with velocity and durability, is what Goyal feels makes India stand out in a post-COVID investment landscape.
He reminded people that India had expanded from a 270 billion dollar economy three decades ago to a four trillion dollar economy in current times. IMF estimates indicate India could be the third-largest economy globally till 2028.
India’s digital milestone
Goyal highlighted that India’s youth and talent place it in a very special position to absorb and propel innovation. With an average population age of 28.4 years and the largest STEM talent pool globally, India graduates more than 2.5 million engineers and technologists every year. Almost 43 percent of them are women, reflecting India’s transition to a more inclusive workforce.
India also takes the lead in digital infrastructure. Solutions such as Aadhaar, UPI and the JAM Trinity (Jan Dhan-Aadhaar-Mobile) are being studied as a case study all over the world. Goyal offered this ecosystem as a playground for Swiss fintech, med-tech and automation businesses, observing that Indian startups were eager to co-design technologies in health, green energy and blockchain-governance.
270 million Indians escape poverty
The Minister also used World Bank statistics to highlight India’s model of inclusive growth. The rate of extreme poverty came down from 22 percent in 2011 to a mere 5 percent in 2024. More than 270 million Indians have escaped poverty in the past 11 years, fuelled by welfare programs, jobs created through infrastructure and a growing digital economy.
Shri Goyal concluded by extending a personal invitation to the Swiss business community to visit India “Come discover India. Come experience Incredible India. Come witness the beauty and transformation of a nation that is emerging from the shadows and claiming its rightful place in the comity of nations.”
A Partnership of Precision and Scale
Switzerland, with a population of nearly nine million, is renowned for its engineering prowess, innovation and quality production. India, with its enormous market and pool of talent, presents the size Swiss industry typically desires when venturing outside its borders.
Two-way trade between the two nations was 17.14 billion dollars during the financial year 2023-24. Switzerland is also one of the top 15 foreign investors of India, with net FDI inflows of over 5.22 billion dollars since 2000. Indian textile exporters and IT industries are likely to gain from enhanced access to the Swiss and larger EFTA markets with TEPA.
India exports to Switzerland textiles, gems and jewellery, and chemicals, and Swiss exports to India are dominated by precious metals, watches, pharmaceuticals and high-precision machinery. The agreement phases out tariffs on most of these products within a decade.
Timing and Global Repositioning Beyond Trade
Goyal’s idea comes as the global supply chains are going through a massive shift. The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, combined with the increase in geopolitical tensions, has led multinational companies to diversify production centres and decrease over-reliance on any country, most notably China.
As per a 2024 report by the World Economic Forum called Beyond Cost: Country Readiness for the Future of Manufacturing and Supply Chains, nations such as India, Vietnam, and Mexico are fast becoming alternative bases as they continue to develop their infrastructure, boast huge pools of labour, and receive state-sponsored incentives. India, in particular, has seen fresh interest thanks to its Production-Linked Incentive schemes, liberalised FDI policy, and focus on ease of doing business.
Industry analysts opine that India’s demographic strengths, digital infrastructure, and political stability establish it as a natural choice for the realignment of manufacturing. The focus of Goyal on this change was not merely strategic, but well-timed, aligning India’s sales pitch with a wider global push to create resilient and decentralised supply chains.
A New Industrial Friendship
As Goyal concluded his Swiss visit, he left behind something more than a speech. He left a roadmap for the next stage in India-Switzerland relations, based on mutual respect, economic synergy and future-oriented cooperation.
What Swiss companies accept this vision will be determined by India’s capacity to provide a frictionless business environment and whether Swiss SMEs view India not only as a market but as a co-architect of global solutions.
The Swissmem Industry Day 2025 can easily be looked back upon as a turning point in the economic diplomacy of two innovation-based democracies.
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