fter more than a decade of intense negotiations, the recent signing of the trade deal between the European Free Trade Association (EFTA) – of which Switzerland is a member – and India may well accelerate time. We offer our analysis in these pages, with expert opinions, forecasts, interviews and contributions from the ambassadors of these two nations, now joined by an agreement that will benefit the watchmaking industry.

Because India is such an important culture, and because of our long history there – the idea to launch a publishing house came to Europa Star’s founder Hugo Buchser while travelling in what were then known as “the Indies”, almost a century ago –, a large part of this issue is also given over to a report from the field.

Some thirty years after his last visit, already to Titan in Bangalore, our editor-in-chief Pierre Maillard returned to a country that has changed dramatically, while preserving and perhaps even deepening the distinctive traits of its civilisation. From the industrial centre of Bangalore, he toured the wonderful heritage of Jaipur, not least its ancient astronomical observatory, before exploring the grid architecture of Chandigarh, designed by Le Corbusier, a native of its “sister city” of La Chaux-de-Fonds, also a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

These are names that spark the imagination. Indeed, India has often been described as a distant promise, a dream, and one that was likely to remain so. Still, the country is not entirely foreign territory for Swiss watchmaking. Ask Rado or Favre Leuba: both made India a key market long before any treaty was signed!

This report, possibly the most comprehensive to date on the watch industry in India, does not claim to provide the keys to understanding the complexity of this country-continent. Rather, it paints a picture that expresses the depth and richness of a culture.

Import duties may change, India will remain a mystery, nonetheless. Switzerland’s exacting watchmakers will always have to adapt their “tempo”. After all, when Hugo Buchser visited India in the 1920s, he took with him a batch of watches whose hands turned counterclockwise. A symbol, indeed!