Indiana Governor Eric Holcomb returned last week from his third international trade mission in his first nine months as governor. This time he took Indiana’s economic development message to India. Of course, technology jobs are a key focus of the state’s relationship with India, which is undoubtedly why the governor invited TechPoint President and CEO Mike Langellier to be a part of the delegation.

“With recent, large job commitments from India-based companies, we are building even greater momentum to send more Hoosier-made goods to India and recruit more Indian businesses to grow here in Indiana,” Holcomb said in a story in the Indianapolis Star. “I’ll remain focused on taking our state to the world and bringing the world back to our Hoosier communities.”

There are currently nine India-based companies in Indiana. In March, Infosys became the latest Indian company to announce plans to add an Indiana site with the creation of a tech and innovation hub. The company will invest $8.7 million and employ up to 2,000 Hoosiers. Wipro, which acquired Indianapolis-based Appirio last year in a $500 million deal, is based in the same state in India as Infosys.

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More from the IndyStar: Since 2006, Indiana exports to India have increased 117 percent, totaling more than $266 million in 2016, while India imports to Indiana totaled $349 million. India also has strong ties to the state’s colleges: Purdue University, for example, had the largest enrollment of Indian undergraduate students in the U.S., with 881 students in the fall of 2016.

The Big News

Gov. Holcomb announced Thursday that another India-based company is setting up a new North American headquarters in Indiana, bringing 500 jobs to the state, reported the Indianapolis Star.

Bangalore-based product engineering firm AXISCADES plans to invest $10 million over the next five years to set up operations in Indiana. The company is considering an undisclosed shortlist of possible sites in Indiana and plans to make a final decision by the end of the year, with operations beginning by April 2018.

In exchange, the company will receive up to $4.3 million in conditional tax credits and up to $500,000 in training grants, pending approval from the Indiana Economic Development Corp.

Read more about the AXISCADES announcement from the Indianapolis Business Journal: Indian engineering firm plans to open 500-worker North American HQ in state

The Sister State

Before news broke of the 500 new jobs coming to Indiana from India, Gov. Holcomb announced that he signed an agreement with the Minister for Information Technology, Biotechnology and Tourism of the Indian state of Karnataka, establishing a sister-state relationship.

The Indian state of Karnataka is home to companies with expanding Hoosier presences including Infosys and Wipro. Inside INdiana Business has more details on the sister-state relationship.

The International Strategy

In an Associated Press piece from earlier in October (before Gov. Holcomb left for India), the governor indicated that the fears and resistance to change of the past is no longer the best approach for Indiana, not that it was ever a good approach to begin with.

“Isolation, digging a moat around yourself, filling it and saying, ‘We’re good,’ would be retreat from not just competing, but having the opportunity to win.” Holcomb said in an interview with The Associated Press. “There’s a lot of good about ‘the good old days,’ but there’s a bigger windshield than rearview mirror,” he later added.

In addition to the recent trade mission to India, Holcomb previously traveled to Hungary and France in June and Japan in September for economic development.

In additional reporting from Inside INdiana Business, the trip also included meetings with executives from Columbus-based Cummins Inc. (NYSE: CMI), which has a headquarters in Mumbai and 20 plants in India, employing more than 10,000 employees. The group toured the company’s new technical center and met with professors from the Cummins Women’s College of Engineering.