Parmelin opens Delhi talks as the India-EFTA pact marks a year and Swiss investment rises $202 million

Swiss President Guy Parmelin began a three-day state visit to India on Monday and held talks with Prime Minister Narendra Modi at Hyderabad House. He is in the country from 5 to 7 October at Modi's invitation, with a business delegation. It is his first state visit, and his second trip this year after the AI Impact Summit in New Delhi in February. President Droupadi Murmu is due to host a banquet. On 7 October he attends the second India-EFTA Prosperity Summit.

Parmelin said he was glad the visit would mark the first anniversary of the India-EFTA Trade and Economic Partnership Agreement, TEPA. The pact was signed on 10 March 2024 and entered into force on 1 October 2025. Talks had started in October 2008, a run of 16 years. Switzerland, Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway were the first European partners to conclude a free-trade agreement with India. India later set up an EFTA desk.

The investment number, one year on

TEPA carries a binding commitment to bring in $100 billion of foreign direct investment and to create one million direct jobs in India over 15 years. That is the figure ministers cited when the deal was signed. The first published check is smaller and more precise. Government data put Swiss investment in India at $11,114.32 million up to September 2025 and at $11,316.42 million up to March 2026. The rise is $202.10 million. Against a 15-year pledge of $100 billion, the first six months of the agreement have delivered about a fifth of one percent of the headline stock target.

That gap is the useful fact of the anniversary. A $100 billion figure over 15 years implies on the order of $6 billion to $7 billion a year if it were even. The recorded Swiss increase in the first half year is $202 million. Investment pledges in trade deals are often targets for capital to be encouraged, not cheques, and the text gives both sides room on timing. The Prosperity Summit on Wednesday is where companies are expected to put projects next to that number. Until they do, the operating result of year one is the $202 million increment, plus a rise in Indian imports from the EFTA bloc, especially gold from Switzerland.

What the talks are for

Modi and Parmelin were scheduled to review trade, investment, science, technology, innovation, mobility, culture and people-to-people ties. Indian officials have said they want EFTA capital in pharmaceuticals, medical technology, green technology, energy, precision engineering and the blue economy. Those are the sectors where a Swiss firm can use the tariff schedule. They are also the sectors where a single plant decision would dwarf the $202 million recorded so far.

The visit lands while India is still negotiating with the United States and preparing an EU agreement. Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said on Monday that the US talks had reached a plateau. Business Standard reported that Modi is due in Brussels in mid-December for the signing of a final India-EU trade agreement. TEPA is the European deal already in force. The EU deal is the larger one still on the calendar. Parmelin's three days are the anniversary of the smaller pact, and the first public moment at which the $100 billion pledge can be measured against a number that has actually been booked.

Gold, and the other side of the ledger

The investment figure is only half of year one. Business Standard reported that Indian imports from the EFTA bloc rose over the year, with gold from Switzerland the conspicuous line. A trade agreement that cuts tariffs will raise imports before it raises factories. TEPA's political case in Delhi was the $100 billion and the million jobs. Its customs case in the first year is goods moving the other way, gold among them. Parmelin's delegation of business leaders is in Delhi to put project announcements next to that import line.

The Prosperity Summit on 7 October is the scheduled place for those announcements. A single pharmaceutical or precision-engineering plant would change the $202 million increment more than another quarter of portfolio inflow. Until a project of that size is named, the anniversary number remains the one in the government table: Swiss investment stock up from $11,114.32 million to $11,316.42 million.