Indo-French industry body invites Indian startups, MSMEs

Hyderabad: Around 130 Indian companies have their facilitiesin France, however, startups and MSMEs (micro, small, medium enterprises) from this country are few in numbers,lacking access to European Union (EU), said a French Consulting firm.

Indo-French Chamber of Commerce and Industry (IFCCI) had held a session on ‘Market entry to France for understanding how Indian companies can enter the French market’. The event was held on Tuesday in Hyderabad, in collaboration with TNP India, a French Consulting firm and World Trade Center Shamshabad.

Matthieu Lebeurre, Partner, TNP-Industry, Data Science and Analytics, TNP India and Guillaume Kerbrat, Director Associate-Automotive and New Mobility, TNP Consultants France, spoke about the opportunities available for Indian companies to set up their officeor venture in France with their service or product.

“Bharat Biotech from Hyderabad is one of the successful Indian companies present in France. But, we have seen that the number of startups and MSMEs lag behind in getting access to the EU. If an enterprise serving under B2C(business-to-consumer)entersthe EU, it will have access to more than 500 million customers with good spending power,” Lebeurre said. Europe is supposed to be the largest consumer market, bigger than that of the US and China, he claimed.

According to the official, the enterprises working in the defence sector would have to partner with local companies in France so as to not endure the regulations in place, but companies in sustainability, smart energy, information technology (IT), pharma and even food processing will have faster access to the market.

He further said, “France has a dense startup ecosystem. The country has invested heavily into research and development creating a favourable environment for Indian companies involved in tech driven industries such as IT, biotech, renewable energy and aerospace.”

Comparing the startup ecosystem with that of France, Lebeurre said that their country has multiple incubators like T-Hub, and efforts are put into collaboratingthem with the companies.

“The companies setting up their facilities in towns are given subsidies. As we can see that 43 per cent of investments are made in towns with fewer than 20,000 habitants while 74 per cent of industrial investments were made in these towns,” he informed. On a question, he commented that the paperwork for investing in France moves faster than that in case of India.