Gateway House and Indian Ministry of External Affairs collaborate on the second Gateway of India Geoeconomic Dialogue

·  The Gateway of India Geoeconomic Dialogue is scheduled for 13-14 February at the Taj Mahal Palace Hotel in Mumbai

·  Second signature conference for Gateway House

· Foreign ministers, leading industrialists, policy makers and field experts from around the world will be among the participants

by Suman Gupta 

Mumbai, January  2017: Gateway House, the Mumbai-based Indian Council on Global Relations, will throw open its doors to host the second Gateway of India Geoeconomic Dialogue: Where geopolitics meets business on 13-14 February 2017.  The conference, co-hosted with the Ministry of External Affairs, is one of India’s premier foreign policy summits, bringing together the highest representatives of foreign affairs and business from India and abroad. 

Since the first conference was held last June, the world has changed quite dramatically. India is starting to make the appropriate moves to position itself at a geopolitically more significant place. This conference offers a unique opportunity for Mumbai’s business community to participate in the discussion and generate ideas that will shape the global discourse.

Headlining the conference will be a conversation on the topic, Global dislocations, Strategic Implications - 10 Major Trends’ between N. Chandrasekaran, MD & CEO, TCS and Chairman-designate of Tata Sons, and S. Jaishankar, Foreign Secretary, Government of India.

The conference will offer panel discussions on today’s most pressing issues in foreign policy and economic diplomacy. These include the future of globalization, the priorities of sovereign wealth funds, digital disruption of business, and global tax havens.

Participants leading these discussions include senior government leaders and officials as well as experts, such as M.J. Akbar, Minister of State for External Affairs, Foreign Secretary Admiral Sunil Lanba,Head of India’s Naval Command, Mohandas Pai, Yonov Frederik Agah Deputy, Director of the World Trade Organisation, Rakesh Jhunjhunwala, Gretchen Morgenson of The New York Times, and others.

Manjeet Kripalani, Executive Director and co-founder of Gateway House, comments, “We all know that business and foreign policy today go hand-in-hand, especially given the Indian government’s emphasis on economic diplomacy for investments and on raising the country’s global profile. We are proud to be the forum for this gathering, and to once again showcase Mumbai’s unparalleled ability to contribute to a pragmatic global debate on foreign affairs.”

On behalf of the Ministry of External Affairs, Santosh Jha, Joint Secretary for Policy Planning & Research says, “We are delighted to announce the second edition of the Gateway of India Geoeconomic Dialogue in collaboration with Gateway House. There is no better place than Mumbai to discuss the increasing integration of global politics and business, and India’s expanding global economic engagement.”

As with last year, the conference will be preceded by a meeting of the T20 on 13 February. T20 is the official sub-forum of the G20 process for think tanks and is responsible for contributing ideas and research to the G20 leaders on global economic issues. This year the discussion is titled “Dialogue on the Emerging World Economy” and aims to generate policy ideas that can build consensus between emerging markets and developed countries at the G20 on issues such as global financial markets, digital economy, green economy and global trade and investment. This roundtable discussion will be co-hosted with Germany’s leading think tank, the Kiel Institute for the World Economy and attended by over 40 experts in international economics, finance and trade from around the world. 

The T20 and Gateway of India Geoeconomic Dialogue delegates will be attending and speaking at the dual events, adding their expertise to both.