Union Minister of State for Skill Development & Entrepreneurship and Electronics & IT Shri Rajeev Chandrasekhar is leaving tomorrow on a two-day visit to Brussels to participate in the 1st Ministerial Meeting of the Indo-EU Trade and Technology Council, that will take place on May 16.
Shri Rajeev Chandrasekhar is part of a Ministerial delegation comprising India’s External Affairs Minister Dr S Jaishankar and Union Minister of Commerce & Industry Shri Piyush Goyal that is attending the Indo-EU TTC.
The TTC was launched by Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi and President of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen in April 2022 as a strategic coordination mechanism that will deepen cooperation between India and the EU in such fields as trade, trusted technology and security.
The Minister will be participating in the Working Groups’ sessions on (i) Strategic Technologies, Digital Governance and Digital Connectivity (ii) Green and Clean Energy Technologies and (iii) Trade, Investment and Resilient Value Chains.
The meeting will discuss collaboration between both sides in the fields of microelectronics and supply chain resilience, digital skills, Digital Public Infrastructures (DPI), High Performance Computing and Quantum Technologies, Telecom and IT standardization, Artificial Intelligence.
Both sides will work towards an MoU on cooperation in semiconductor manufacturing, equipment’s, talents building, design and R&D for trusted partnership in semiconductor global value chain. They will aim to sign a Memorandum of Understanding by September 2023.
They will also make efforts to put together a joint roadmap on developing tools (such as benchmarking tests, metrics), standards for Ethical and Responsible AI and work towards making AI test beds available and share practices and mutually learn from the risk-based approach to AI development.
The EU and India will collaborate on enhancing interoperability of their Digital Public Infrastructures, promoting secure, privacy-preserving solutions for developing countries
They will also work towards narrowing the digital skills gap, explore the possibility of recognising each other’s certifications, and advance the promotion and exchange of skilled professionals and identify priority areas for skills: AI, cyber security, data, semiconductors, virtual worlds, and perform a joint mapping of digital skills gap.
The parleys will also focus on exchange of information on India and Europe payment services collaboration between European Payments Initiative (EPI) and NPCI and explore interoperability between Digital ID system and share and exchange learning on DPIs. Both sides will work towards a MoU/ Agreement on mutual recognition of electronic signatures.
Along with Dr S Jaishankar and Shri Piyush Goyal, Shri Rajeev Chandrasekhar will also hold separate meetings with Belgium Prime Minister Alexander De Croo and Ms Ursula von der Leyen.
Shri Rajeev Chandrasekhar will be taking part in the stakeholders’ event with select group of CEO/C-level relevant technology companies in the EU and India. The objective of the discussion is to share perspectives on policies that can create a more favorable environment for technology investment and collaboration between EU and India. They would also share insights on developing emerging technologies and establishing robust supply chains in the field of semiconductors.
The Minister would also be visiting the IMEC headquarters in Leuven and meet its COO and other top officials and the R&D and operational teams during the visit.
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RKJ/DK
