What three IPAs, and the evidence so far, suggest about where the real change lies Over the last few years, AI has started to change the daily work of many industries, and investment promotion is no exception. In my experience, a typical FDI professional once spent roughly half their time on groundwork: building, cleaning and maintaining contact databases, then shortlisting companies by reviewing...
What the Netherlands, Singapore, and the UK suggest about how countries compete for strategic investment, and what India’s semiconductor push is testing. When a country seeks to attract or deepen its relationship with an enterprise like ASML, is it competing for an isolated investment project, or for a long-term ecosystem capability? On 16 May 2026, Tata Electronics and ASML signed a Memorandum...
Building a list of companies that could invest internationally is easier than ever. The harder part is knowing which ones are actually approaching an expansion decision — and why. Experienced Investment Promotion Agencies (IPAs) have realised that visibility is no longer a scarce capability. Many countries can get noticed. The real competitive advantage lies in building an early understanding of...
For an international company looking at India today, the most useful question is no longer simply, “Should we invest in India?” The more relevant question is: “Where does India make strategic sense for us?” India has become increasingly relevant to global investors because of its scale, expanding manufacturing capabilities, supply-chain diversification and growing integration with international...
Having worked on an India-UK complementarity study sometime in 2010-11, I recently came across the India UK Vision 2035 document. The economic relationship between India and the United Kingdom has undergone a profound structural shift over the last two decades, and I am writing this post to reflect on it. While early diplomatic interactions primarily focused on addressing capital deficiencies and...
There is a pervasive skepticism within international relations regarding ceremonial diplomacy. For those focused on the “hard” metrics—trade volumes, memorandums of understanding, and market access—a royal tour often feels like an expensive exercise in mere pageantry. I certainly felt this way in 2010. While working for the UK government’s commercial arm (UKTI) in India, I watched the...
A careful beginning India and the United States have announced a framework for an interim trade agreement. It’s a first step that could, over time, lead to a free trade deal. The framework focuses on a few practical goals: lowering selected tariffs, improving market access, and reducing long-standing frictions. India will cut or remove tariffs on several U.S. industrial goods and some food and...
Trump-era tariff rhetoric and renewed geopolitical friction have made global trade feel less optimistic than it has in a long time. It’s increasingly difficult to see positive developments that signal stability or long-term cooperation. In that climate, when Ursula von der Leyen announced the signing of a free trade agreement between the European Union and India — calling it the “mother of all...
And how to read them without overestimating—or underusing—their influence The trigger for this blog post came from a conversation last month with a PhD student working on a thesis on foreign direct investment. During the interview, he asked a question that was simple on the surface but difficult to answer cleanly: what role do consultancy reports actually play in FDI decisions? Not policy. Not...
Why localisation looks different for Tier-2 and Tier-3 automotive suppliers Recently, a conversation with a specialised firm supporting international automotive suppliers in new markets prompted an interesting question at InsightKraft: what does localisation really mean for Tier-2 and Tier-3 suppliers entering India? India is an important market for global automotive suppliers due to rapid growth...
