Chhattisgarh Industry Minister Amar Agarwal participated in the Global Investors Summit ‘Make in India for Defence Sector’ during Defexpo 2016 in South Goa.
The event was organised by ASSOCHAM in association with Government of Chhattisgarh . The event was attended by high profile speakers and top management of global defence companies participated in the event, officials informed.
Agarwal was the Guest of Honour for the Investors Summit for Defence sector, and Union Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar was the Chief Guest for the event. The inaugural function was also attended by top executives of the companies from across the globe, Central & State Government representatives, industry associations and others.
In his address at the inaugural function, Agarwal briefed about Chhattisgarh and shared his vision for industrial development and investment opportunities in Defence sector in the State.
He thanked Prime Minister Narendra Modi for inducing new energy in industrial sector in India through his initiatives like Make in India, Skill India, and Digital India etc.
Agrawal also gave the delegates specific reasons to do business in Chhattisgarh and reiterated State’s commitment to support and develop industries in sunrise sectors like Defence manufacturing, heavy engineering, railways, electronics, IT & ITeS, etc.
The Minister invited the companies across the globe to visit the State and witness industrial environment in Chhattisgarh.
The Government delegation led by State Industry Minister Amar Agarwal included Chhagan lal Mundra, Chairman, CSIDC, Government of Chhattisgarh; Subodh Kumar Singh, Secretary, Department of Industries and Secretary to the Chief Minister; Kartikeya Goel, Director Industries and Sunil Kumar Mishra, Managing Director, CSIDC was engaged in one to one meetings with representatives of top notch corporates and business delegations at the Defexpo venue in Goa throughout the day.
The delegation had detailed one to one meetings with senior executives of six companies and two business delegation of Defence manufacturing companies. The State delegation also visited the Defexpo in which nearly 1000 companies participated from 47 countries which include Australia, Brazil, Canada, Egypt, Finland, France, Germany, Israel, Japan, Russia, Sweden, UK, USA and others.
BG Milan Schulc, Embassy of Czech Republic; Milan Tous, First Secretary, Embassy of Czech Republic; Sunil Kanoria, Vice Chairman, SREI; Kishore Jayaraman, President-India & South Asia, Rolls Royce; Avishai Berkovitz, Managing Partner, Sostiler ltd; Mr Or Epstein, Marketing Director, Aeronautics; Sanjay Bhandari, Chairman & Managing Director, OIS-AT; Sameer Edroos, Chairman, Armstrong Motor Company llC; G Sharma, Country Head, Northrop Grumman; Vaidyanathan Sivakumar, Director, Elcom Group; S l Deshmukh, Associate Senior Vice President, Elcom Group met the Industry Minister and discussed in details about the defence sector investment opportunities in the State.
The investors after meeting the State delegation appreciated the initiative by the State government and expressed their desire to invest in Chhattisgarh.
The State delegation led by Industry Minister Amar Agarwal also attended the Dinner reception hosted by Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar on March 28, 2016 wherein State delegation met several Global and India defence sector companies delegates and discussed investment opportunities to invest in Chhattisgarh.
In August last year, the Chhattisgarh government had decided to establish a ‘Defense Manufacturing Cluster’ in the State.
The project would also comprise developing a defense research lab, a testing facility and a ‘Defense Smart City’, officials had stated.
For manufacture of defense goods, the State Government on Wednesday also signed a Memorandum of Understanding ( MoU) with M/s Iren Systems.
As per the MoU, M/s Iren Systems will develop a ‘Defense Technology City’ with state-of-art infrastructure.
The move will create employment opportunities in the sector for highly-skilled and skilled youngsters of the State.
Notably, Chhattisgarh has been included among 12 states by the Centre where investor summits would be held to showcase key sectoral strengths.
The 12 State Investor Summits would be held in Gujarat, Andhra Pradesh, Maharashtra, Odisha, Chhattisgarh, Haryana, Madhya Pradesh, Jharkhand, Punjab, Telangana, Karnataka and Tamilnadu to showcase key sectoral strengths with reference to investment opportunities, steps undertaken by the State government to improve business environment, locational advantages, and industrial infrastructure availability.
Key opportunities in sectors like auto, defence and aerospace, food processing, chemicals and petrochemicals, electronics and information technology, pharmaceuticals, textiles, industrial equipment manufacturing, construction equipment, and infrastructure will be showcased through 21 seminars conceptualized and led by the key Union Ministries.
They will be addressed by Union Ministers, Think Tanks, Industry leaders, Academic Institutions, and Industry Associations. Seminars will showcase investment opportunities in each sector, recent policy initiatives for attracting investments and ease of doing business.
Notably, the Global Investors' Meet was held in Chhattisgarh for the first time in year 2012 to attract investors for non-core sector industries.
In this event, the State government had released four major industrial policies for non-core sector that includes Agriculture and Food Processing Industrial Policy 2012, Automotive Industrial Policy 2012, Policy for Investment in Information Technology/IT based services 2012 and Solar Energy Policy 2012-2017.
A total of 449 industrialists and 149 representatives of companies had participated in the 2012 Global Investors Meet in which a total of 285 corporate houses from Chhattisgarh participated.
The State government had signed 257 Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) in the Global Investors Meet.
