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The seventh annual meeting of the Indo-German Working Group on Quality Infrastructure took place on 16th and 17th January 2020 in New Delhi. Germany and India established the Working Group in 2013 to strengthen their economic and technical cooperation, reduce technical barriers to trade, and increase product safety. The German Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy (BMWi) and the Indian Ministry of Consumer Affairs, Food and Public Distribution (MoCAF&PD) in collaboration with other ministries are working closely together on standardisation, accreditation and conformity assessment, metrology, product safety and market surveillance.

The Indo-German discussion paper “Securing the Internet of Things Together” was released at the 7th Annual Meeting of the Indo-German Working Group on Quality Infrastructure on 16 January 2020 in New Delhi. The discussion paper was developed by the Global Project Quality Infrastructure (GPQI) of the German Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy (BMWi) in cooperation with the Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS) and the Data Security Council of India (DSCI).

In November 2019, the Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade (DPIIT) of the Indian Ministry of Commerce and Industry has published several new draft Quality Control Orders (QCOs). QCOs are issued by Indian regulators to introduce technical regulations such as mandatory certification requirements based on Indian standards.

The Annual Meetings of the Sino-German Working Group on Product Safety and the Sino-German Working Group on Accreditation and Conformity Assessment and their preceding technical workshops were held on 4th and 5th of November 2019 in Beijing, P.R. China. The Working Groups are part of the Sino-German Cooperation on Quality Infrastructure between the German Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy (BMWi) and the State Administration for Market Regulation (SAMR) / the Certification and Accreditation Administration (CNCA) of the P.R. China.

At the invitation of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the German Chancellor Angela Merkel visited India from 31 October to 1 November 2019 for the 5th Indo-German Inter-Governmental Consultations. Chancellor Merkel was accompanied by the Federal Minister of Foreign Affairs, the Federal Minister of Education and Research, the Federal Minister of Food and Agriculture, as well as further delegates and industry representatives.

Government and industry representatives from Germany and India discussed their partnership in the automotive sector during the India Day at the International Automotive Exhibition (IAA) on 13 September 2019 in Frankfurt. Torge Wolters from the Global Project Quality Infrastructure (GPQI) gave a presentation on the recent study "Automotive and Component Trade with India: Insights on standards, homologation, and imports".