US Ambassador to India Richard R Verma called on Chief Minister Raman Singh at his office in the Mantralaya here on Tuesday.
The Ambassador during his meeting with the Chief Minister said he would encourage the American investments in higher education, Innovation, Smart City, pharmaceutical companies, I.T. and medical field.
Singh later gave a detailed presentation of immense investment potential for American companies in Chhattisgarh.
Present on the occasion were-- Chief Secretary Vivek Dhand, Information Technology Department Principal Secretary Aman Kumar Singh, Industry Department Secretary Subodh Kumar Singh, Public Relations Department Secretary Santosh Misra, American Consulate General Thomas Wajda and several senior officers.
It may be recalled that American and Chinese firms as well as other domestic industrial groups had evinced keen interest in investing in various sectors of Chhattisgarh in February this year.
Notably, a delegation of American Chamber of Commerce and US-India Business Council led by American Consul General Thomas Vajda had also met Chief Minister Raman Singh in Mumbai .
During the second day of the 'Make in India' event in Mumbai, the Chief Minister had invited top investors to invest in Chhattisgarh.
During his discussion with the American and Chinese delegations, Singh had assured the delegates of providing every possible support for setting up industrial projects in Chhattisgarh.
Commerce and Industry Minister Amar Agrawal, Chairman of Chhattisgarh State Industrial Development Corporation (CSIDC) Chhagan Mundra and Chief Secretary Vivek Dhand were also present.
The American delegation had evinced interest for making investments in road sector, modernization of Railway stations, airports, warehouses, export of frozen agricultural products, water and sewerage treatment in Naya Raipur, Information Technology and Start-ups in Chhattisgarh.
The Chief Minister also had discussions with more than 50 investors during the last two days and invited them to invest in Chhattisgarh. This included Managing Director of lanco Solar Rajkumar Rai, Director of ITC limited Sanjeev Puri, Kirloskar Group Chairman Sanjay Kirloskar, Aavesh Jain of Ruchi Soya, Pradeep Naiyyar of Autodesh, Darshan Hira Nandani of Hira Nandani Group, renowned Architect Hafeez Contractor, Goldy Behl of Rose Audio Visual, Praveen Chheda of Sugal and Damaani Group, Pradeep Agrawal, Arun lakhani of Vishwaraj Infastructure, and Vivek Gupta of GEPl Capital.
In order to explore potential areas of partnership, the delegation was very keen to lay the groundwork for US companies on partnering the State and industrial units in Chhattisgarh, under Centre’s ‘Make in India’ initiative and wanted to leverage on the State’s strengths in “Ease of Doing Business”, officials stated.
A delegation from the same office, led by US Consul General Thomas l. Vajda had visited the State last year on December 9 and this was the follow-up visit on the agenda of promoting Chhattisgarh as preferred investment destination in India to US-based companies operating in India or intending to operate in India.