Services exhibition to be held from Nov 26-28 in Bengaluru to attract investment

In a bid to attract investment and partnership in aviation, space, telecom, infrastructure sector among others, the Commerce Ministry will host the next edition of Global Exhibition on Services (GES) in Bengaluru later this month. The program, aimed at engaging industry and governments across the world and to promote greater exchange of trade in services between India and rest of the world, will have Services Export Promotion Council (SEPC) and Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) as partners, the Ministry of Commerce & Industry said in a release on Sunday.

The 5th edition of GES 2019 is being held from November 26-28 in Bengaluru, Karnataka, the release said. The ministry said the exhibition is an attempt towards escalating Indian services bar in the global arena by exploring 12 champion services sectors, encompassing participation from 100 countries and hosting sector-specific knowledge sessions.

India is looking to attract investments and partnerships in strategic areas like aviation and space program, infrastructure, telecom projects, financial management and accounting, content, design, media distribution and outsourcing publishing work, intellectual property management services and environmental/social impact assessment. With this, the government seeks to enhance strategic cooperation and develop synergies to strengthen multilateral relationships between all stakeholders, tap the potential for services exports and increase FDI inflow, it further said.

GES 2019 SEPC is also looking to promote eSports. The eSports industry is expected to grow rapidly and in 2017 worldwide revenue generated in the eSports market amounted to USD 655 million (about Rs 4,650 crore). The market is expected to generate close to USD 1.8 billion in revenue by 2022. The regular monthly salaries of average pro-gamers may range from USD 1,000 to USD 5,000 apart from the money that they win from prizes.

There were 270 million global fans of eSports in 2016 and the number is expected to grow to 495 million in 2020, it said. For GES 2019, India has invited eSports federations from several countries. Participants are expected from Indonesia, Vietnam, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Japan, Maldives, Saudi Arabia, New Zealand, Australia, South Africa, and Korea.

The ministry said that foreign delegates from 100 countries and participants from 15 states of India are expected in GES 2019. "India is also aspiring to promote niche tourism like the Buddhist circuit, adventure, and camping tourism. Uttar Pradesh is the partnering state mainly to promote the tourism sector and will have a separate state pavilion in GES 2019," it added.

In order to attract more players in the services sector, India has liberalized its e-visa regime in three categories: e-tourist, e-medical, and e-business to promote these sectors. Multiple entry tourist and business visas for a period of five years are now available to nationals of all countries for the benefit of medical tourists.

Separate immigration counters and facilitation desks have been provided at six Indian international airports of Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata, Chennai, Bengaluru, and Hyderabad, the release said. SEPC is an export promotion council set up by the Ministry of Commerce and Industry in 2006 as an apex trade body to facilitate service exporters of India.

It actively contributes to the formulation of policies and acts as an interface between the services industry and the government. It has a membership base of 4,800 members from the 14 service sectors.