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Finance and industries minister and former Ficci secretary general, Amit Mitra and chief secretary Sanjay Mitra will accompany Banerjee on the five-day trip. Some of the other departmental secretaries are also likely to be part of the delegation. Banerjee will leave for Singapore on August 17 in the evening and return on August 22.
Although the state government is yet to make the formal announcement on the details, sources said CESC Chairman Sanjiv Goenka and Ambuja-Neotia group Chairman Harsh Neotia would be part of the business delegation which would include about 10-12 business men from Kolkata.
Invitations have been extended to presidents of the Bengal Chamber of Commerce and Industry (BCCI), Bengal National Chamber of Commerceand Industry, Indian Merchants’ Chamber, Indian Chamber of Commerce and Bharat Chamber of Commerce.
Apart from BCCI president Kallol Dutta, who has conveyed his inability to be part of the delegation due to other engagements, the rest are likely to accompany the chief minister.
Also Partha Ghosh, chief executive officer and director of Bengal Aerotropolis Projects Ltd, of which Singapore's Changi is the leading promoter, will be part of the delegation. Incidentally, it is on an invitation from the Singapore government and Changi Airports International (CAI) that Mamata Banerjee will be visiting Singapore.
CAI Chairman Kee Teck Koon, along with a five-member Singapore delegation, had met Banerjee on July 11 to extend the invitation.CAI is the leading promoter of the long-delayed airport city project at Andal near Durgapur.
Although the itenerary of the trip is yet to be made public, sources said in first two days Mamata will have a bilateral meet with Changi officials there. Apart from discussions on some of operational bottlenecks, Banerjee could also finalise the deal leading to Changi's increase of stake in Bengal Aerotropolis (BAPL), the special purpose vehicle (SPV) executing the project. CAI, which has invested as much as Rs 1000 crore in the project so far, has been looking to increase its stake for quite some time, and the state government has indicated in the first go CAI has expressed its intent to increase stake from 24 to 32.5%.
Some MoUs are expected to be signed by members of the business delegation.
Besides, apart from assessing the potential areas of tie-ups between Singapore and west Bengal, Banerjee is expected to meet the heads of multinational companies. "Several global companies have headquarters in Singapore and planning to fix meetings between these companies and the Bengal government is currently on. A report on the potential areas of investment namely education, infrastructure, health services, tourism, particularly eco-tourism and others is being prepared," said an official.
