Berlin, Sep 28 (IANS): The 'Make In India Mittelstand' (MIIM) programme has garnered Euro 500 million investment and created employment opportunities in India for 3,500 people in its first year, the Indian Embassy said here on Wednesday.

The MIIM, an investment facilitation programme, was launched in September 2015 to get German small and medium enterprises (SME) to invest in India.

"The MIIM programme has elicited a declared investment of about Euro 500 million and creating about 3,500 employment opportunities in India," the Indian Embassy in Germany said in a statement following the launch of the second year of MIIM at an MIIM Exchange Platform organised here.

The programme primarily aims to facilitate investments by the German Mittelstand (SME) companies.

"Encouraged by the significant results achieved by the MIIM initiative, the Deutsche Investitions- und Entwicklungsgesellschaft (DEG), a subsidiary of the state-owned German KfW Development Bank, will have increased participation in the MIIM programme," the statement said.

"MIIM has hence three new programme partners, including Deutsche Bank (Banking Partner), Deutsche Messe, Hannover (Exhibition Partner), and TÜV Rheinland (Associate Partner) for technical certifications," it added. 

India was the partner country in 2015 in Germany's biggest industrial fair, Hannover Messe.

Since Mittlestand companies -- small and medium enterprises with annual revenues of up to Euro 50 million and a maximum of 499 employees -- are considered the backbone of German industry, the embassies of the two countries launched the Make In India Mittelstand initiative designed to fetch investments from such German firms. 

According to the Indian Embassy, at the event here on Tuesday, the German government expressed its full support to the Make In India Mittelstand programme to bring new medium-sized German companies to invest in India.

"Frau Brigitte Zypries, the Parliamentary State Secretary, German Federal Ministry of Economics & Energy, conveyed the Government of Germany's full support to the Make In India Mittelstand programme," the statement said. 

Meanwhile, with the Make in India campaign completing two years back home, the government on Sunday announced that foreign direct investment (FDI) inflows into the country had recorded their highest level on the basis of a yearly comparison.

"India records its highest ever year-on-year FDI inflows. There has never been a better time to #MakeInIndia," the Department of Industrial Policy & Promotion (DIPP) said in a Twitter post.