Germany promises India more visas for skilled workers

Germany on Friday promised to dramatically boost the number of skilled Indians it permits as Chancellor Olaf Scholz visited the Indian capital, New Delhi.

Berlin has also pledged to reduce the bureaucracy of the application process and to make the recognition of Indian professional qualifications in Germany easier. The announcement was made as Scholz met Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

What the leaders said

Germany has agreed to increase the number of visas granted annually to skilled Indian workers to 90,000, up from 20,000.

"The message is that Germany is open for skilled workers," Scholz said. The chancellor said there had been "good progress" on attracting skilled labor, with nearly 250,000 Indians now living in Germany.

Indians were working "in the sectors where we need them most urgently – whether in medicine, in nursing care, or the IT sector," he said.

Modi welcomed the agreement as an economic benefit for both countries. 

"When India's dynamics and Germany's precision meet, when Germany's engineering and India's innovation meet... a better future is decided for the Indo-Pacific and the entire world," he said. 

India and Germany signed an earlier migration agreement two years ago to allow greater mobility for professionals and students.

Indians show strong interest in 'opportunity card' 

Figures released on Thursday showed that Indians were the most likely national group to find work in Germany under a new "opportunity card" scheme. 

Almost 2,500 migrants have successfully applied to enter Germany to find work since June under the coalition government's scheme.

The Interior Ministry said it had registered almost 550 successful applications each month since the measure, which allows skilled workers to arrive in Germany to look for employment, was introduced in June. 

Of the overall total, there were 780 successful applications from India, followed by China, Turkey and Pakistan.

rc/lo (AP, Reuters)