Foreign investors rush for WEF meet

The 20th India Economic Summit, the annual event organised by the World Economic Forum (WEF) and Confederation of Indian Industry (CII), will see a large turnout of foreign investors and delegates this year.

CII officials said over 650 delegates from over 33 countries had registered this year and registration was closed much ahead of the actual date.

"This year, the India Economic Summit will see the single largest turnout of serious foreign investors with nearly 400 foreign delegates, more than the number of Indian participants. The number of delegates is 40 per cent more this time. Even foreign governments' participation is likely to be more as compared to last year," Ajay Khanna, CEO of India Brand Equity Fund, said.

It is not just the 650 delegates. Even the number of sponsors is far higher than last year. "There are nearly 20 sponsors and there is a major rush among them," he said. These include AT Kearney, ABB, Emaar Properties, Accenture, Standard Chartered, Boeing, Bombardier, Coca-Cola, Daimler Chrysler, PricewaterhouseCoopers and PepsiCo.

In the nearly 40 interactive sessions, the summit will explore critical business issues relating to the new economic issues of the country and the region, such as corporate citizenship, transparency, product-specific and well defined market opportunities, counterfeiting and Intellectual Property Rights.

"A special high level session on NRIs will also be held to discuss the investment environment provided to them. With Laxmi Mittal, Karan Billimoria and Lord Daljit Rana, we expect the session to be the greatest puller," Khanna said.