The defining number in India-Switzerland relations today is $100 billion: the investment ambition embedded in the India EFTA Trade and Economic Partnership Agreement (TEPA), alongside the goal of one million direct jobs over 15 years. It is an arresting figure. But the more consequential question is what the money will build. If TEPA becomes primarily a story of capital flows and lower tariffs, its potential will be only partly realised.
If it creates new suppliers, industrial capabilities, technologies and knowledge networks, it can become something much larger: a model of how India converts economic partnerships into productive power. That distinction matters. Swiss President Guy Parmelin’s October 5 talks with Prime Minister Narendra Modi widened an already substantial agenda, spanning trade and investment, research, mobility, infrastructure, defence production and nuclear energy.
A day later, the science and technology conversation moved further, with Switzerland earmarking CHF 45 million for the Indo Swiss research partnership. The architecture is rapidly being built. But architecture is not outcome. India and Switzerland are compelling partners precisely because they are not economic replicas of each other. India brings scale: a vast market, a deep talent pool, expanding infrastructure, a growing innovation system and an industrial policy increasingly focused on building domestic capability.
Switzerland brings density: capital, precision engineering, advanced manufacturing, pharmaceuticals, med-tech, research institutions and globally competitive firms operating at the high value end of supply chains. The strategic opportunity is to connect Indian scale with Swiss specialisation. That requires a more demanding definition of investment. For India, the value of Swiss capital should not end when a factory opens or an investment announcement is made.
The more important question is what remains in the economy afterwards. Does the investment create Indian suppliers? Does it Research Framework and Joint Scientific Board offer a chance to change the unit of ambition. Artificial intelligence, quantum technologies, biotechnology, advanced materials, clean technology, biomedical research, space and ocean research are not simply fields for academic exchange. They are platforms around which new industries can be built. train engineers and technicians? Does it transfer production know-how?
Does it generate intellectual property, exports or new firms? Does an Indian small or medium enterprise move from being a local vendor to becoming part of a Swiss company’s global supply chain? More than 330 Swiss companies already operate in India, and Swiss firms are visible in infrastructure and high-value sectors. Projects associated with Swiss expertise range from tunnelling and rail systems to the Varanasi ropeway and Noida International Airport.
TEPA now creates an opportunity to move beyond a collection of successful investments towards something more structural: an Indo-Swiss production ecosystem. India should identify sectors where Swiss technological depth and Indian manufacturing scale can reinforce each other, including precision machinery, clean technologies, medical devices, specialty chemicals, transport systems and advanced materials. The policy objective should be supplier deepening, not simply investment attraction. An EFTA facilitation mechanism already exists.
The next step should be to map where Swiss firms source critical inputs, identify Indian companies capable of entering those supply chains, and build targeted programmes around certification, standards, technology adoption and skills. The real measure of TEPA’s success will be whether it helps Indian firms climb value chains rather than merely expanding the volume of bilateral commerce. The same logic applies to research. India and Switzerland have cooperated in science and technology for more than two decades, but the proposed Indo-Swiss The CHF 45 million Swiss commitment therefore matters less as a funding headline than as an opportunity to redesign the path from laboratory to market.
Joint research should be evaluated not only by papers published, but by patents filed, technologies commercialised, start-ups created, industrial partnerships formed and public problems solved. India should push for consortia that bring universities, research laboratories, start-ups and established companies together from the beginning. Research collaboration becomes economically strategic when discovery, demonstration, manufacturing and deployment sit in the same pipeline. Mobility is the third piece of this capability agenda.
The new migration and young professionals arrangements can give Indian researchers and professionals greater exposure to a knowledge intensive economy. But mobility should not be treated as a one-way export of talent. India and Switzerland should build circulation: joint fellowships, industry placements, dual-institution research teams, alumni networks and return pathways that allow skills and relationships acquired abroad to feed back into firms and institutions in both countries. In a world competing for specialised talent, networks can be as valuable as migration flows. and shift diplomatic attention from announcements to outcomes.
The larger idea is simple: India should treat Switzerland not only as a source of capital, and Switzerland should treat India not only as a source of demand. Their strongest partnership lies in co-creation. Swiss precision can combine with Indian scale; Swiss research networks with Indian scientific talent; Swiss firms with Indian suppliers; and Swiss access to European innovation systems with India’s growing technological and diplomatic weight. There is a wider strategic dividend as well.
Switzerland sits at the centre of important financial, scientific and multilateral networks, with Geneva serving as a major venue for global governance. India is seeking a larger role in shaping the rules governing emerging technologies, trade and development. Cooperation on artificial intelligence governance, standards and technology diplomacy can therefore extend the partnership beyond the bilateral ledger. India does not need Switzerland merely as a market or investor; it can use the relationship as a bridge into high-value European innovation and rule-making networks.
Switzerland, equally, gains a deeper anchor in one of the world’s largest and fastest-transforming economies. None of this will happen automatically. Investment targets can remain aspirational. Research programmes can become collections of grants with little commercial afterlife. Mobility agreements can facilitate movement without creating durable institutional ties. Lower tariffs can increase imports without strengthening production. The danger is not that India Switzerland relations lack ambition. It is that a broad agenda becomes a substitute for a focused one.
Both governments should therefore create an Indo Swiss impact dashboard tied to TEPA and the wider bilateral relationship. It should track not only investment flows, but supplier localisation, jobs and skills created, Indian firms entering Swiss or European value chains, joint patents, commercialised research, startup partnerships, professional exchanges and export growth. Such metrics would make implementation visible, reveal bottlenecks early The $100 billion figure will attract attention because of its scale.
But a decade from now, the more revealing numbers will be different: how many Indian suppliers entered global value chains, how many technologies reached the market, how many specialised workers were trained, how many joint ventures became exporters, and how much new productive capacity was created. TEPA has supplied the framework. India and Switzerland must now build the economy underneath it. The real $100 billion question is not how much Switzerland invests in India. It is what India and Switzerland will be able to build together that neither could build as effectively alone.
*Simran Keshwani is a Sydney based political economist specialising in India’s clean-energy transition, industrial strategy and Indo-Pacific economic security. Janvi Singhi is an Independent Researcher and Gold Medalist in International Relations based in Hyderabad. She is currently working as a Research Associate at the Organization for Threat Assessment and Peacebuilding (OTAP), Asia-Pacific Bureau.