Andhra likely to vie for Intel's facility

High-level delegation to meet Intel chief in US next month

Andhra Pradesh is expected to officially vie for the proposed assembly test manufacturing facility mulled by Intel in India when an official delegation from state will meet Intel chief Craig Barret next month in the US.

A high-profile delegation led by state legislative Assembly speaker K R Suresh Reddy will be leaving for the US this month-end on a fortnight tour aimed at meeting NRIs of the state besides interacting with heads of several US-based companies and business associations to invite them to invest in the state.

There have been reports that Chennai, Noida or Bangalore could be one of the possible locations for Intel's proposed facility in India and this has made the state officials jittery.

"Till now, Hyderabad had been out of the race. But it will now join the race," a senior government official told Business Standard. He said that he decided to be part of the group touring US only after an appointment was fixed up with Craig Barret.

The other members of the delegation include principal secretary of state industries department Lakshmi Parthasarathi, IT advisor to Andhra Pradesh government C S Rao and minister for industries B Satyanarayana.The team is commencing its tour coinciding with the conference of Telugu Association of North America.

Some of the industry bodies with which the state delegation plans to interact include, Semi Conductor Association of America, International Technology Association of America, Northern Virginia Technical Council, and US India Business Council.

The delegation is also expected to meet officials of AIG Insurance company, IBM and Computer Associates.

Though the delegation will meet some of the top brass of pharma, biotech and automotive companies during the visit, its main focus will, however, be on IT and ITeS sectors.

This is evident from the fact that the team will be in San Francisco for five days between July 6 and July 10, 2005, and interact with the chiefs of IT companies and address members of IT associations in the Silicon Valley.

The team will begin its tour from Detroit and visit Los Angeles, San Francisco, Washington, New York and New Jersey before leaving for India on July 14, 2005.