Gujarat attracts investments of $14O bn

Gujarat has attracted commitments for investments to the tune of $140 billion from the three Global Investors' Summits held in the state in the last five years, state chief minister Narendra Modi said today.

Modi said, Gujarat had a success rate of 80% in converting commitments into reality.

After the conclusion of the Global Investors' Summit-2007 held on January 12 and 13, 352 MoUs were inked aggregating prospective investments worth Rs 4,61,835 crore, he said.

"SEZs in Gujarat are going to be a model for India's driving force of future economic progress as land acquisition is not a problem at all. On the contrary SEZs are designed to utilise fallow and saline land on the vast sea coast," he said So far 33 SEZs had been approved and not a single case of controversy has emerged, he said adding it was the only State to have less than 0.5% loss of mandays with utmost peaceful labour.

The Planning Commission had asked Gujarat to achieve a growth rate of 11.2%, Modi said adding agriculture would be a thrust area for achieving this target. The State had planned to achieve 13% growth in agriculture while the natural growth rate was only 4%.

"Most of our farmers are cotton growers. Unlike Maharashtra and Andhra Pradesh, our State has not had a single case of farmers' suicide," Modi said.