The Chhattisgarh State delegation led by Chief Minister Raman Singh which is on a six-day tour of China on Tuesday met representatives of several leading Indian business houses in Hong Kong and invited them to invest in the State.
The Business Mission was organised by Chhattisgarh Government and Chamber of Commerce in Hong Kong, officials stated.
About 50 local industrialists and business persons, across sectors like financial services, minerals, gems and jewellery, food processing, and hospitality had participated in the meeting. There was a detailed discussion over the various sectors available for investment.
Kartikeya Goel, Director, Industries, Government of Chhattisgarh gave a detailed presentation about Chhattisgarh and the investment opportunities available.
He spoke in detail regarding strategy for investment and industrial promotion
and State Government's key initiatives to promote the ambitious ‘Make In India’ and ‘Make In Chhattisgarh’ missions.
Addressing the gathering, Chief Minister Raman Singh congratulated Hong Kong industry and business houses for being an integral and important part of Hong Kong economy and making their presence felt in the global city with their hard work.
He said that Chhattisgarh is a promising and emerging business destination and provides new opportunities for business with State's focus on emerging sectors like IT/ ITeS. Electronics, food processing, engineering, manufacturing, solar equipment and other fields. Cost of doing business in Chhattisgarh is economical with low cost of power, raw materials, land and labour.
The State is developing world-class urban and industrial infrastructure and connectivity of air, rail and road network, so as to be the logistics and supply chain hub of India.
He called upon business houses in Hong Kong to visit Chhattisgarh to experience its enabling environment for growth.
The Chinese entrepreneurs displayed their keen interest to pay a visit to the State to explore opportunities for investment in Engineering equipment manufacturing, food processing textiles and apparel, Electronics among others.
The Business Summit was attended by Vivek Dhand, Chief Secretary, Aman Kumar Singh, Principal Secretary to Chief Minister, Department of IT and Department of Energy and Subodh Kumar Singh, Secretary to Chief Minister, Department of Industries and Mining.
The Chief Minister along with the senior delegates had a meeting with Madhu Rao, Executive Director and CFO, Shangri-la Asia ltd., to discuss prospects across luxury hospitality, food processing and logistics sectors.
The delegation also had a meeting with Pranab Kumar Samrah, Chief Investment Officer, Managing Director, OCI Global ltd.
OCI ltd is a Korean company and one of the largest global solar wafer ingot manufacturers. The business houses are keen on setting up their manufacturing shops and solar power plants in Chhattisgarh.
Meanwhile, it may be recalled that on August 10, 2014, Chhattisgarh took its first step forward under Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s ‘Make In India’ campaign with a Chinese firm agreeing to establish a `100 crore manufacturing-cum- assembling unit for PC components, Tablets and smart phones near Raipur.
A MoU was signed between Chhattisgarh InfoTech and Biotech Promotion Society (CHiPS) and Chinese firm M/s Forstar Industry ltd in the presence of Chief Minister Raman Singh in Raipur.
As per the MoU, the Chinese company had decided to set up a project at Urkura Industrial Area near Raipur to manufacture PC components, smart phones and laptops.
By signing the MoU, the Chinese firm had agreed to invest an estimated `100 crore on the project.
In a year's time, the plant would employ around 200 persons. At full scale, direct and ancillary units employment would be created for more than 1,000 persons. This industry has the potential to grow further in terms of employment opportunities also with the increase in manufacturing capacity, the officials had stated during the signing of MoU.
Indirect employment for more than a thousand people would also be created in area of software development, training, distribution channels/network, soft content making, maintenance and service support etc would also be created, they had stated.
Officials of the Chinese company had informed at that time that it would also offer skill improvement training to youth of Chhattisgarh in IT sector.
Initially, the company had planned to manufacture 75,000 units of gadgets per month. later the manufacturing capacity would be increased to 1 million units per year, it had announced.