There is a huge demand for knowledge workers from India to work in the Netherlands in industries such as information, communication and technology (ICT), biotech and pharmaceutical, according to Mrs Karien Van Gennip, Netherlands Minister for Foreign Trade.

"We need more knowledge workers from India," she told newspersons.

According to Mrs Gennip, in May this year the Netherlands relaxed its regulations to attract knowledge workers and since then about 160 visas have been issued to knowledge workers from India. "We looked at visa-related issues in the last one year and relaxed some of our regulations. It is now easy, quick and transparent to get work visas," she said.

The Dutch Minister said bilateral trade between India and Netherlands was about Euro 2.2 billion. Of this India's exports to Netherlands was Euro 1.3 billion and import from Netherlands was Euro 900 million. "We need to consolidate this further and this is the main purpose of my visit to India along with a business delegation of 30 people from the Netherlands," she said.

Easy gateway


According to Mrs Gennip, Netherlands offers an easy gateway for Indian exporters to tap the 450 million affluent consumers in the European Union. There is no major paper work involved to enter the Union through the Netherlands.

The Minister said she wants to strengthen business relationship between the two countries in areas such as ICT, agriculture, biotech, water management and infrastructure. The Netherlands, which is the partner country at Connect 2006 (this year's ICT event of Tamil Nadu), would highlight at the event the success of mobile phone penetration and Internet penetration in her country, she said.

According to Mr E.F. Ch. Niehe, Netherlands Ambassador to India, the Rotterdam Port Authority plans to advise major ports in India on large-scale modernisation. The authority just started work, he said without elaborating.