National

Modi promises balanced growth

— PHOTO: AP

The “Vibrant Gujarat” summit began in Ahmedabad on Monday. Among the participants (from left) are: Tata Motors Chairman Ratan Tata, Kenya’s Prime Minister Raila Amolo Odinga, Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi, Japanese Ambassador Hideaki Domichi and Reliance Industries Chairman Mukesh Ambani.

AHMEDABAD: The two-day “Vibrant Gujarat 2009” industrial summit took off with a rollicking start at the Gujarat Science City here on Monday. At the inaugural ceremony, top industrialists from the country and abroad promised more than Rs. 2.75 lakh crore investments in the State.

More than 3,000 memoranda of understanding are expected to be signed by various private and public sector companies with the Gujarat government and its subsidiaries, attracting investments of over Rs. 10 lakh crore in the coming years.

Later, Chief Secretary D. Rajagopalan announced that on the first day itself 444 MoUs were signed, envisaging investments of over Rs. 7.48 lakh crore with a potential of 8.22 lakh jobs.

Chief Minister Narendra Modi, who inaugurated the summit, promised a balanced growth of all three important sectors, industries, agriculture and services — with each contributing one-third of the State’s development — with more emphasis on tourism. Pointing out that the summit would lay stress on the small and medium-scale industries for creating more employment opportunities, Mr. Modi asked entrepreneurs to convert the current global financial recession into an opportunity by competing in the global market with zero-defect products and environment-friendly technology. He also advised the SMEs to seek guidance from Italy and Japan, which had advanced in the small and medium sector industries.

Mr. Modi coined a new word, “RACE” — that stood for “lower Risk, Alertness of the government, low Cost and high Efficiency,” — for the success of the industrial sector and promised all the four advantages to the entrepreneurs if they set up units in Gujarat. Charting the developmental path in the industrial sector that started from small clusters of industrial sheds provided by the state-owned companies in the industrial zones, he said Gujarat graduated to Special Economic Zones (SEZs) with a large number of industrial houses. But unlike many other States, it would not stop at the SEZs and instead planned to go ahead with very large Special Industrial Regions (SIRs), each covering 200-400 sqkm. The SIRs, along with the planned Delhi-Mumbai Industrial Corridor (40 per cent of which falls in Gujarat cutting across north to the south of the State), would substantially contribute to the State’s industrial progress.

Among those present at the biennial “The Vibrant Gujarat Global Investors’ Summit 2009” were the Prime Minister and Deputy Prime Minister of Kenya, Raila Amolo Odinga and Musalia Mudavadi, three Cabinet Ministers; Agriculture Minister of Italy Paolo Pertini; Singapore Minister for Foreign Affairs Zainul Abidin Rashid; Sri Lankan Tourism Minister M. Moragoda; Uganda Minister of State for Industries Ephraim Kamuntu; the former Japan Minister for Fiscal Policies, Hizo Takenaka; several members of Parliament from the United Kingdom, Canada, Uganda, and several other countries, and the Ambassadors or High Commissioners in India of Japan, Malawi, Namibia, Korea, Mongolia and Taipei.

Japan has become the official partner of the summit this time.

Among the top industrialists who addressed the gathering announcing the investments were Chairman of Tata Motors Ratan Tata; Chairman of Reliance Industries Mukesh Ambani; Chairman of the Essar group Shashi Ruia; Chairman of the Aditya Birla group Kumaramangalam Birla; Chairman of the Adani group Gautam Adani; the Hotmail fame and now Chairman of the Nano Work Development Sabeer Bhatia; Chairman and Managing Director of Bharat Forge B.N. Kalyani; Videocon Managing Director R.N. Dhoot; Welspun Managing Director B.K. Goenka; and SRF Chairman Arun Bharatram. Industries Ministers of Karnataka and Chhattisgarh were present.

Mr. Tata, whose model of a “Nano” car remained a major draw at the industrial exhibition set up on the occasion, stressed how the entire process of his shifting the project from Singur in West Bengal to Sanand in Gujarat was completed in just three days instead of the normal governmental practice of taking three to six months. “This in essence is the strength of Gujarat and I am happy that I am here.” He promised another Rs. 21,000 crore investments in the next three years.

Mr. Ambani said Reliance so far had invested more than Rs. 50,000 crore and would be fully commissioning its expansion of the Jamnagar refinery this year.

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