West Bengal Industrial Development Corporation (WBIDC) does not feel that future investments in the state getting would be were hampered by the recent disturbances that erupted over land acquisition and the related policies of the state government, at places like Singur and Nandigram.
At an interactive session with the ambassador of Indonesia in India and high commissioner of Brunei in India, organised by Bharat Chamber of Commerce (BCC), S Gupta, managing director of WBIDC, said, "All positive points about investing in the state could be negated by the recent problem over availability of land. However it is not an insoluble issue and the state has taken steps to tackle it”.
Industrial zones would be built on land unsuitable for agriculture. To prevent further problems, the government has decided to come up with a land bank.
WBIDC would procure land in large chunks depending on agricultural productivity and willingness of people, after which it would develop the land and hand it over to investors for setting up units. “Large number of investors have shown confidence in the state," Gupta claimed.
He said that West Bengal had an immense potential in the power sector with about 50 per cent getting added to the existing capacity over the next few years by private players.
The state also had the lowest power tariff in the country.
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The state needed investments in food processing as less than four per cent of the food in the state was now being packaged or processed.
The state was a good location for the iron and steel industry with about $5000 million investment lined up for the next few years.
This apart the state was preferred by investors backing in leather products, footwear and information technology, he claimed.
Andi Muhammad Ghalib, ambassador of Indonesia in India, claimed that the country could collaborate with West Bengal in areas of crude palm oil, coal, footwear, agricultural products and machineries, cocoa, mining and education.
India and Indonesia had a bilateral trade target of $10 billion by 2010, Ghalib added.