TEAM HERALD
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PANJIM: Portuguese investors have shown interest in outsourcing shipbuilding to Goa, owing to cheaper costs here, President of the Goa Chamber of Commerce and Industry Manguirish Pai Raikar told Herald.
Speaking after the interactions between businessmen from both sides, Raikar said that the interactions were fruitful and that Goa has the advantage of offering cheaper services.
“In their country the costs are higher including labour and material. So some of them have evinced interest in outsourcing their ship building here. The process has begun. Things have to move forward from here,” Raikar said.
The Portuguese Ambassador to India Jorge Roza de Oliveira paid a visit to the state leading a business delegation to Goa in place of Portuguese Foreign Minister Paulo Portas who had to cut short his visit to India to fly to Venezuela for the funeral of former Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez.
Portas was heading a Portuguese trade delegation to the sub-continent and was accompanied by the Secretary of State for Culture Jorge Barreto Xavier and Pedro Reis, the president of the Portuguese agency for Investment and External Commerce (AICEP).
Representatives of 35 Portuguese companies from various sectors were also travelling with the minister.
Oliveira pitched for ties in tourism as well as in the agro foods sector especially cold meats, wines and other processed foods and also collaboration in tourism.
However the achievements in Goa were overshadowed by the achievements in Delhi.
A number of contracts between Indian and Portuguese companies were signed during the five-day tour, to the country only one of which was spent in Goa.
These included a lucrative deal between Indian multinational Birla and Visabeira, all in Delhi and Mumbai.
Ralph de Souza, former chairman of the Travel and Tourism Association of Goa (TTAG) said that the Goa visit was focused more on the kind of industry that the state offers.
“The delegation had a fixed agenda. Only part of the delegation came to Goa. The delegation that was interested in wines, olives and other such products. We put them in touch with importers of these products in order to help them market these products in the state,” de Souza told Herald saying that the state industry on its part was offering what it could.
