Coming close on the heels of the India-Canada nuclear agreement last week, the trade mission by the premier (equal to a chief minister in India) from Dec 6-11 will take him to New Delhi, Mumbai and Hyderabad.

The visit assumes significance as Ontario with Toronto as its capital is the powerhouse of Canada, accounting for more than 40 percent of the nation’s economy and much of manufacturing and auto industries.

Before leaving for New Delhi, McGuinty told the media that his mission will have “a laser-like focus” in India.

He said, “We are very focused on what we want to do now – if you have got an interest in that, great let us talk. If you don’t, then we are moving on to the next person.” The premier said India’s “so many challenges” offered many opportunities to Canada as “we have so many solutions for them.”

He said India has “some real environmental challenges and we have got over 2,600 environmental technology companies.

“Why not put two and two together? Let us go over there and bring them some solutions.”

McGuinty has set a target of creating 50,000 “green jobs” in his province in the next three years as his government tries to promote green energy technology to check global warming. He is targeting India and China for selling green technology to create these many jobs here.

With over $200 billion needed in new investments to raise its renewable energy production capacity to 200 GW by 2030, India offers a huge market for Canadian green companies.

Canadian companies are also eyeing India’s water and wastewater treatment market which is growing at a rate of 10-12 percent.

The trade mission includes 31 people from 27 Ontario companies and universities which have expertise in green technology and infrastructure.

Economic development and trade minister Sandra Pupatello, Canada-India Business Council president Rana Sarkar, experts in green energy, sewage and water treatment and energy storage, and representatives from four universities are among those in the mission.

After meeting Indian ministers in New Delhi, the premier will visit Mumbai and Hyderabad to meet business leaders.

Though it has not been mentioned whether he will visit the Golden Temple, but a trip to Amritsar is likely because of a huge number of Sikh votes here. Traditionally, Canadian Sikhs and other immigrant communities have voted the premier’s Liberal Party.

This will be the second visit of the premier to India after his first mission in January 2007. (IANS)

Keeping aside the climate change standoff on greenhouse gas emission cuts between India and the US, talks between the two leaders focused on exploring collaborative opportunities in renewable energy sector, particularly on clean technology transfer. Abdullah emphasised on the need to break technology transfer barriers.

At the international forums, India has been insisting all along that the issue of technology transfer can by resolved by making an ”adjustment” in intellectual property rights as in the case of HIV/AIDS drugs, bidding for patented technology from a global fund set up for the purpose, or undertaking publicly funded research on a collaborative model to come up with appropriate clean technologies.

Referring to high costs of deploying renewables like solar energy, Abdullah sought financial support from the US. He also called for low-interest loans to help the industry replace conventional energy with non-conventional one.

The meeting came a day after the release of the US-India joint statement following secretary of state Hillary Clinton’s meetings with Indian leaders in New Delhi. Both the countries pledged to promote collaboration on energy security and climate change and make efforts focused on increasing energy efficiency, renewable energy, and clean energy technologies. Both sides also agreed to launch a process of bilateral scientific and technological collaboration to support the development, deployment and transfer of transformative and innovative technologies in areas of mutual interest including solar and other renewable energy, clean coal and energy efficiency.

India and the US also affirmed their commitment to work together with other countries, including through the Major Economies Forum on Energy and Climate (MEF), for positive results in the UNFCCC Conference on Climate Change in Copenhagen in December 2009.The recently held US-led MEF in L’Aquila, Italy, sought to lay the ground for enabling different countries strike partnerships to drive low-carbon technologies. For example, India was asked to show leadership in high-efficiency and clean-coal technologies.

President Barack Obama too, after launching his renewable energy initiative of $150 million over 10 years, had invited India to become a partner, particularly in areas like clean coal technology, solar energy and energy efficiency. India has already expressed its readiness to look at joint R&D projects on clean coal and solar energy.

India is also working with the US, Australia, Canada, China, Japan and Korea under Asia-Pacific Partnership on Clean Development and Climate to push clean energy technologies.

Indian cleantech companies raised a total of $131 Mn this quarter, an increase of 167% since last quarter.

The Cleantech Group along with Deloitte has released preliminary Q2 09 (April-June 2009) results for clean technology venture investments in North America, Europe, China and India, totalling $1.2 billion across 94 companies. The report also says that India accounted for 11% of the total $1.2 billion cleantech investements made this quarter. North America accounted for 66%, while Europe and Israel accounted for 21% and China for 1%.

The report says that Q2 09 total investments are up by 12% as compared to the previous quarter, however, they have declined by 44% from the same quarter last year. The average round size in Q2 09 was $12.9 million which has gone up from $12.3 million in Q1 09.

“Cleantech venture investment has rebounded moderately after free-falling for two consecutive quarters. We are seeing initial signs of recovery in other cleantech asset classes, including recent activity in solar tax equity, increased M&A levels, as well as billions in government stimulus that are being allocated globally to the cleantech sector over the next several quarters,” said Brian Fan, senior director of research, Cleantech Group.

The report further says that, Indian cleantech companies raised a total of $131 million in seven investment rounds (of which one deal amount was not disclosed).

The total cleantech investments in India this quarter have gone up by 167% as compared to the previous quarter (January-March 2009). These investments have also increased by 161% as companred with the cleantech investments that were made in India in the same quarter last year.

The country’s largest cleantech deal in the quarter was the Ramky Enviro Engineers’ (REEL) deal in which the company raised $42 million (Rs 200 crore) form Standard Chartered IL&FS Asia Infrastructure Growth Fund, early last month. The private equity fund had bought a minority stake of less than 5% in REEL. REEL is a Hyderabad based waste management company and is a part of the Rs 2,500 crore Ramky Group.

Also, in the last quarter, the most active cleantech investor in the country was IL&FS (Infrastructure Leasing and Financial Services Limited), which invested in two deals. While Ramky Enviro Engineers was one of its investments in the quarter, it also invested around $7 million (Rs 36 crore) in renewable energy company Shalivahana Green Energy Limited (SGEL). Axis Private Equity had also invested $11 million (Rs 54 crore) in SGEL along with IL&FS.

In another cleantech deal in India, solar power firm Cobol Technologies (owned by Deepak and Ratul Puri of Moser Baer), raised $30 million (Rs 151 crore) from the Bermuda-based mid-sized fund house Pangea Capital. The funding was raised in April this year.

In May, electrical energy storage platform developer Deeya Energy Inc raised series C funding of $30 million from Technology Partners, BlueRun Ventures, Draper Fisher Jurvetson, Element Partners and New Enterprise Associates. The funding was led by Technology Partners.

According to the report, the sector that led the cleantech investments in the quarter was the transportation sector, specifically, vehicles, biofuels and advanced batteries. The investments in the segments reflect the attention on the automotive sector and significant government stimulus.

The Solar sector, however, saw its lowest level of investment in the last three years, with only $114 million investments going into the sector. The investments in the solar sector have gone down from a high of $1.2 billion in 3Q 08. The decline in the investments in the sector is largely because most investors, whose portfolios contain significant solar holdings, did not increase their exposure.

“While venture investment in solar is down dramatically, utility investment in cleantech is up. Solar thermal was the leading energy source procured through power purchase agreements in the first half of 2009,” said Scott Smith, U.S. leader of Deloitte’s Cleantech practice.

The Cleantech Group accelerates the development and market adoption of clean technologies globally. The company has a global network of investors, entrepreneurs, enterprises, service providers and others. The network receives access to capital, investment deal flow, networking, market leading research and data, sales leads and promotional opportunities.

The Group also provides advisory services for large corporations and governments, publishes cleantech sector industry news coverage and produces the Cleantech Forum events across the globe.