How the Dutch put wind in sails of bilateral relations

Anchored at a bay in the Chennai port, its sails all down, bobbing gently in the water, the ship, Clipper Stad Amsterdam, is an unlikely venue for a meeting of Chennai businessmen and bureaucrats with Dutch Ambassador Marisa Gerards. Docked in the city port for a series of events under the banner of Netherlands meets Chennai, the Dutch wanted to showcase the ship, which is going round the world, and discuss bilateral relations and, more importantly, trade.

On Wednesday, despite the cyclone brewing in the bay, the rains stayed away, with gusty winds rippling the waters. The Clipper, 76 metres in length, features 31 sails, and is manned by a 30-member crew. Recreating the sailing ships of yore, the Clipper, with a steel hull not wooden, is on a trip round the world for two years and docked in Chennai after stopovers in Bali and Singapore.

Expanding ties

One descends a grand mahogany staircase from the deck, where the sails are folded up, to the longroom, all in gleaming teak and brass. “The Netherlands and India have a thriving economic relationship,” declares Ambassador Gerards, “We have about 300 Dutch companies active here in India and quite a few multinationals as well such as Philips and Shell. There’s quite some investments from Indian companies in the Netherlands as well and there’s a lot happening in the IT sector.” There are around 350 Indian companies invested in the Netherlands, many of them in the Amsterdam area and quite a few of them are software companies ranging from TCS and Cognizant to LatentView Analytics and ChargeBee.

“There’s a lot going on in the innovation side and there’s room to expand and do more,” says Gerards. “We are a small country with 17 million people but because we’re so high on the innovation index it’s interesting for India to do business with the Dutch because there are areas where we can really team up. And then sectors that are important for India are also sectors where we are very strong, like agriculture, water management, energy and the health sector,” she adds.

Stad Amsterdam docked at the port of Chennai | Photo Credit: Bijoy Ghosh

Talks on export corridor

The ambassador says there the Dutch are exploring green hydrogen as an alternative fuel and it is looking to establish an import-export corridor for green hydrogen from the port of Rotterdam. “It’s a gateway and the biggest port in Europe and it has a huge hinterland where you can transport easily to Germany, to France,” she says. “The gas that we found in the northern part of our country we pumped it up for decades and we have a whole distribution system and now that these these fields are empty and we can use this system to transport green hydrogen.” This could be of interest to India when green hydrogen is produced commercially.

In FY23-24, Netherlands was the India’s third largest export destination internationally and the top export destination within the EU with exports totalling $22.4 billion. The total bilateral trade with the Netherlands in the same period was $27.17 billion. Gerards says there is going to be a joint working group on trade and investments in the Netherlands on January 13 & 14 to discuss trade issues and to see how to foster and encourage investment.

Make in India

Ambassador Gerards also sees that with the ‘Make in India’ policy of the government, more Dutch companies are now investing in India. She points to the example of Royal IHC, a Dutch company that specialises in dredging and ship building, which has collaborated with Cochin Shipyard to make an advanced dredger for the dredging company DCI.

The Dutch embassy used the docking of the ship to have a series of activities in city, starting with a bicycle ride, an activity popular in the Netherlands. Then there were talks in universities, a day-long oncology conference, a talk on Dutch heritage in India, and, of course, meetings with businessmen who would like to invest.

As for Clipper Amsterdam, it will be back in the city of Amsterdam by August 2025 for Sail Amsterdam, a maritime event held every five years, where sailing ships from round the world will gather. This time it will be to celebrate 750 years of the city of Amsterdam.