The Hindu Business Line : Bangalore to have Swiss Consul office soon

Chennai, Feb. 12 A full-fledged office of the Consul General of Switzerland would soon be in operation in Bangalore along with a Swiss Scientific Office, according to Mr Peter E. Specker, the Swiss Consul General at Mumbai.

Addressing the Southern India Chamber of Commerce and Industry, he said the Bangalore office would handle the visa applications from the southern States, which till now was being handled at his office in Mumbai. This would help expedite the paper work.

From today, visa applications at the Mumbai office will go through VFS Global which handles the visa applications for the Schengen States. Switzerland had joined the group of Schengen States last December, he said.

Mr Specker said that Switzerland estimates that this could mean a drop of about 20 per cent in visa applications directly to the Swiss destinations. But with more than 80 per cent of the visa applications from India being tourist visas, the impact is not likely to be higher.

Slowdown impact

A further drop of about 15-20 per cent is likely because of the economic slowdown.

Over 1 lakh visa applications are processed annually at the Swiss consulates in Mumbai and Delhi. European countries have reported a 50-80 per cent drop in visa applications because of the slowdown, Mr Specker said.

Also in the pipeline is a plan to set up a Swiss Scientific Office that would foster collaboration between research and scientific establishments in Switzerland and India.

Space research and other knowledge-based industries would be among the areas of focus. The office would encourage collaboration in research and scaling up the work to commercial application.

Eye on south

Mr Daniel Freihofer, Counsellor, Economic and Commercial Affairs, said that more Swiss companies are likely to look at investments in South India as part of a plan to widen their market base to tackle the economic slowdown. Over 160 Swiss companies have set up operations in India, but were concentrated in Maharashtra, Delhi, Gujarat and Karnataka.

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