WEF meet to see big turnout

The 20th India Economic Summit, scheduled to be inaugurated by Finance Minister P Chidambaram on Sunday, will see more focused meeting with smaller groups of economic heads and corporate leaders.

"Most delegates this year asked for smaller meetings that are more interactive rather than the bigger model which we follow in Davos," said Collette Mathur, director, World Economic Forum (Asia, Pacific and India), said at a press meet here today.

Mathur said as multinational companies were still in the process of testing waters in India, this year's summit would be more interactive to help global players know and gauge the Indian market for future investments.

The annual event, being jointly organised by the WEF and Confederation of Indian Industry (CII), is expected to see a large turnout, with delegates coming from 33 countries.

The event here will see greater participation as compared with China. "China saw 400 delegates participating, whereas more than 650 delegates are participating in the India Economic Summit," Mathur said.

Pointing out that there were clear indications that the country had become a priority destination for partnership and investment, she said the summit had for the first time received a good response from the Middle East.

"A special high level session on NRIs will also be held to discuss the investment environment provided to them. There will be speakers like Lakshmi Mittal, Karan Billimoria and Lord Daljit Rana," she said.