Date:27/01/2006 URL: http://www.thehindubusinessline.com/2006/01/27/stories/2006012702861600.htm

Back Chidambaram highlights developments to woo global investors at Davos — `Power, airports, food processingsectors offer potential'

Preeti Mehra

Davos , Jan. 26

THE Finance Minister, Mr P. Chidambaram, today made a strong pitch to global investors to invest in the booming Indian economy, highlighting power, airports and food processing among the emerging thrust areas.

Speaking at a breakfast meeting organised on the sidelines of the Annual Meeting of the World Economic Forum here with a number of multinational firms, including a sizeable number of large Japanese corporations, the Finance Minister said the investors should tap the opportunities offered by the growing Indian economy.

In the airport sector, Mr Chidambaram said opportunities were emerging in Chennai, Kolkata and 30 smaller airports, where airport upgradation contracts were expected to be on the anvil soon.

In the power sector too, Mr Chidambaram said five new thermal projects for generating 20,000 MW of power were to be finalised by the end of this year.

While two of these projects would be developed as pithead projects, the remaining three would be coastal projects.

Mr Chidambaram said that these projects provide large opportunities to power majors as well as capital goods suppliers from countries such as Japan. He said the Government would offer the projects to investors following a competitive tariff-based bidding process and that all clearances for the projects would be provided before the bid was awarded.

The food processing sector was also mentioned by the Finance Minister as another emerging area, with ample scope for foreign investments.

Mr Chidambaram said, at present, only two to three per cent of agricultural products were being processed in the country.

The Japanese delegation pointed out that a major small scale delegation comprising over 70 representatives would be in India next month to assess the opportunities available for trade and investment.

Mr Chidambaram said in his recent visit to Japan he was enthused by the good response from the business and political leaders towards investing in India.

He said the interest should now translate into investments.

The CII President, Mr Y.C. Deveshwar, said India was looking at value added exports and therefore would like to see Japanese investments for processing raw materials.