Draws 2766 MoUs worth Rs14.9 lakh crore
Breaking all records of the previous two-day Vibrant Gujarat Global Investors' Summit 2009 (VGGIS), this year’s Summit saw memorandums of understanding (MoUs) worth Rs15 lakh crore being signed on the first day alone. In the previous event, the total 8,500 MoUs signed in the two days amounted to about Rs12.3 lakh crore.
The fifth Vibrant Gujarat Summit 2011 was inaugurated on January 12 and saw a record of 2,766 MoUs in 26 different sectors being signed till 5pm on Wednesday. “Gujarat government is organizing the biennial summits right from 2003 and in its 5th summit on the very first day saw Rs15 lakh crore worth of investment proposals being committed which was a new record for the state of Gujarat,” said government spokesperson and Minister of State for Industries Saurabhbhai Patel.
Of the total MoUs signed on day one of VGS 2011, around 48 MoUs worth Rs3.05 lakh crore were from power, 13 MoUs worth Rs1.22 lakh crore were for the various Special Investment Regions (SIRs), 41 MoUs worth Rs1.34 lakh crore were for mineral sector and about 16 MoUs worth Rs1.72 lakh crore in the financial services sector. Apart from these, around 16 MoUs worth Rs40,679 crore were signed for the oil and gas sector, 153 worth Rs73,546 crore were signed for PCPIR while over 300 MoUs worth Rs75,103 crore were signed for engineering, auto and ceramic industries.
Learning from the past such summits, the Gujarat government took additional steps to ensure filtering of unviable projects. "This year we have rejected about 10-12 per cent MoUs after thorough scrutinising since we found them unviable," said a senior state government official.
The Special Investment Region (SIR) being planned at Dholera will house the country's first city, developed on the public-private partnership model, a top source associated with the project informed today.
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Amitabh Kant, managing director and chief executive officer, DMIC informed today that Dholera SIR will house India's first city developed on the PPP model. Speaking at the seminar on SIR, SEZ and DMIC at the VGGIS event in Gandhinagar today, Kant informed that this will be one of the only city in the country. "In India, we have all the towns in India developed by state support, while at Dholera a city will be developed on the partnerships with the private developers as well as government support," said Kant.
Further, AK Sharma, CEO, GIDB informed that the region is being readied for the development works. "There were issues pertaining to water logging etc but that are being taken care of and we are doing the scientific management for the same," he said. The SIR, SEZs and DMIC witnessed 12 MoUs being signed on the Day-1 of the VGS-2011 event with an investment commitment worth Rs1.39 lakh crore, which will generate employment opportunity for around 1.29 lakh individuals.
Apparently, the summit also saw participation from around 90 countries including the likes of Japan, Canada, Australia, South Africa and the US, among others. Similarly, around 16 Indian states like Karnataka, Chhatisgarh and Andhra Pradesh, among others made the most of the event. With its participation in the two-day Vibrant Gujarat 2011 Summit reaping benefits, the state government of Karnataka has been able to attract investment worth Rs22,000 crore from companies within and without Gujarat.
At the end of first day of the summit, Karnataka saw 15 memorandums of understanding (MoUs) and 5 expressions of interest (EOIs) being signed in sectors like steel, textile, cement, engineering and food processing. Among these included companies like Kalyani Steel, Aravali Energy, Mukand Ltd., Ultratech Cement, Gujarat Ambuja Exports Limited, Mahindra and Mahindra and ETCO Denim, apart from others.
"Karnataka is keen on tapping the potential of areas of development beyond the confines of Bangalore and these include Mysore, Mangalore, Hubli-Dharwad, Belgaum, Tumkur and Kolar, among others. We have benefited by participating in the summit in Gujarat and have been able to attract investment of about Rs 22,000 crore. We hope to generate over 5,000 direct employment with this," said VP Baligar, principal secretary, commerce and industries department, Government of Karnataka.
Talking about the state's participation, Baligar said that both Karnataka and Gujarat are similar in terms of area and culture which will help in generating business at such summits. "We intend to implement certain things that we have learnt in Gujarat. For instance, we also intend to construct a convention centre similar to the Mahatma Mandir in Gandhinagar for dedicatedly conducting our investor summit. Also, we have learnt a lot about networking and inviting industry representatives for such summit from Gujarat," said Baligar.
Ruing about the losing the Tata Nano project to Gujarat, Baligar said that the state government has now embarked on building a land bank of over one lakh acres to augment business development in Karnataka. "We lost the Nano project because we didn't have land. Now we are building enough land bank to avoid such circumstances," he added.