The Punjab Government, National University Singapore and Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) on Thursday signed tripartite memorandum of understanding (MoU) to facilitate joint research and capacity building on ease of doing business.
To open new vistas of investment in the State, the Punjab Government will prepare a master plan on ease of doing business in the State under “Vision 2020” to facilitate research and capacity building regarding business opportunities which will further take the State to the heights of economic prosperity.
Disclosing this after signing a tripartite agreement, Deputy Chief Minister Sukhbir Badal informed that its objective is to collaborate and conduct joint research on all issues and aspects related to the ease of doing business in Punjab.
The MoU was signed in the presence of Sukhbir by Invest Punjab CEO Anirudh Tewari, research fellow lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy NUS Singapore Dr Sasidaran Gopalan and CII Punjab State Council chairman SS Bhogal.
Sukhbir said that the MoU would help to deliberate on strategy to create a level of understanding and determining parameters so as to carry out the business activities in Punjab in keeping with the message sent out by the success of second Progressive Punjab Investor Summit 2015.
Tewari informed that lee Kuan Yew (lKY) School of Public Policy NUS Singapore would conduct study on ease of doing business in Punjab and cover the various aspects in the State with the prime focus on investment attractiveness, manpower and competitiveness.
NSU representative Dr Gopalan informed that the draft plan of Vision Document 2020 will be prepared soon after meeting with all the stakeholders. “The study would bring into focus on State’s specific problems and help in drafting new policies by the State with special focus on creating conducive environment for existing industries,” he added.
He divulged that the study would also identify the potential areas which could be explored with regard to new investments and ease of doing business and similar MoUs have also been inked with other States.
CII chairman Bhogal said that CII and lKY School had earlier organised a workshop on enhancing the ease of doing business in Punjab to explore the bottlenecks and issues, if any being faced by industry besides policy and regulatory changes with respect to promoting investments and business especially for the existing Industry that could be recommended to the Punjab Government.