Jersey's Minister for Economic Development, Senator Philip Ozouf, has accepted an official invitation from the President of the Indian Chamber of Commerce to visit Mumbai.

The invitation was extended during a visit to Jersey last year by Sunil Mittah Bharti, Chairman of Bharti Telecommunications and current President of the Indian Chamber of Commerce, who was in the Island to officially launch Jersey Airtel.

The Minister will lead a delegation of States officers including the Chief Executive of Economic Development, Mike King, Director of International Trade, Wayne Gallichan and Martin de Forest Brown, the States International Finance Director. The group will also be joined by Geoff Cook, Chief Executive of Jersey Finance Limited.

As well as strengthening existing relationships, the Jersey authorities hope to use these networks to help drive more institutions and businesses to the Island. Martin de Forest Brown and Geoff Cook will be meeting with intermediaries from the financial services sector, whilst Mike King and Wayne Gallichan will be focusing on establishing relationships with local businesses keen to invest outside of India.

The visit will take place between 11 and 16 February 2008, and coincides with NASSCOM, India’s largest conference for software service providers.

Speaking with regard to the forthcoming visit, Senator Ozouf announced that:

“It is essential that we in Jersey grow and diversify the economy both in terms of geographic reach and products. India is a very exciting market seeing significant growth and along with China is becoming an economic superpower of the future. There are exciting opportunities for Jersey in Financial Services and Intellectual Property and we need to start to invest time and resources to develop these opportunities."

He concluded:

"This is the first time Jersey is formally visiting India and I’m looking forward to an intense series of meetings to understand the opportunities, raise awareness of Jersey and prepare for the very important opportunities that exist for Jersey in India.”