New Delhi, October 31, 2014 –Dalian, a warm water port city in China, has taken the first step of a long march towards India, heeding Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s call for ‘Make in India’.
Mark Shujun Ma, a Stanford-educated Chinese economist and member of the Chinese Political Consultative Committee of Dalian, held a conclave here and announced plans to join India’s bid to create SME clusters through a global platform named ‘Arc of China’.
The platform, which will offer offline and online support to SMEs, as well as marketing and funding options, aims to promote investment by Chinese SMEs to invest in India and set up manufacturing units here.
Ma, along with some investment bankers, met officials in various Ministries as well as small and medium enterprises (SMEs) across sectors such as solar power, waste management, river cleaning, food processing, tourism and e-commerce among others.
Signing of MoUs
“We will soon be signing six MoUs here,” said Naveen, an investment banker associated with Arc of China. He said talks were on for joint ventures for a cold chain in Assam, a food park in Himachal Pradesh, a loco manufacturing plant in Varanasi, solar and LED manufacturing facilities in Gujarat and Telangana, water treatment plant in Maharashtra and some units in the Vizag-Chennai industrial corridor.
“Our aim is to create 10,000 SME clusters in the world,” said Ma. Commending India’s joint family system, he said India and China could extend this ‘sustainable’ model to the field of business.
Ma said Indian SMEs could tap into the pool of expertise and technology of 46 million SMEs in China and vice versa, to expand business and create jobs. “Going forward, the real power of China and India will not come from large companies but the SME sector,” he added. Business Line
