Amarinder meets ambassadors, asks for invest in Punjab
New Delhi: Punjab Chief Minister Amarinder Singh on Thursday called upon ambassadors and representatives of various foreign missions and invited them to invest in the state.
He also asked them to visit Punjab during the 550th birth anniversary celebrations of Sikhism founder Guru Nanak Dev.
Presiding over a pre-summit interaction under the "Ambassador Connect" programme, organised by the 'Invest Punjab', Amarinder extended a personal invite to envoys from different countries to participate in the Progressive Punjab Investors' Summit-2019 to be organised at Mohali from December 5 to 6.
Delegates from over 25 countries, comprising ambassadors, trade organisations and mission representatives from the United States, United Kingdom, Spain, Qatar, France, Israel, Canada, Japan, UAE, Taiwan, Slovak Republic and Czech Republic attended the pre-summit interaction.
Amarinder Singh further said the summit would be a milestone in exploring the tremendous business potential besides creating synergy between Punjab and foreign investors for pushing the industrialisation on fast track.
He also asked the ambassadors to send their teams of entrepreneurs, who were keen on investing in Punjab, as well as individual investors to participate in the Investors' Summit.
The chief minister said the state was moving towards greater industrialisation in a shift from the traditional agriculture-based economy, which had already reached a point of saturation.
His government had promoted ease of business with its new industrial policy, which is aimed at facilitating investors, he said
This, he said, had led to winds of change as reflected in the fact that over Rs 50,000 crore (USD 7 billion) investment had been firmed up since his government took over in March 2017, an official statement claimed.
The chief minister assured the investors of his government's full support and cooperation for setting up their ventures in the state besides providing seamless and time-bound clearances.
He further mentioned that since the MSME sector was the engine for socio-economic growth and the backbone for industrial development, the state government had prioritised its MSME as a key focus area.
Earlier, the chief minister had a one-to-one interaction with Japanese High Commissioner Kenji Hiramatsu, who evinced keen interest in promoting the tourism sector in Punjab.
Responding to his proposal, the chief minister extended Japan support in exploring the possibility of developing a tourism site over an area of nearly 500 acres in Talwara, which abounds in natural and scenic beauty.
The chief minister also invited him to explore the potential to develop a technology hub over 500 to 700 acres either at Rajpura or Bathinda and suggested that the proposal be further crystallised at the December summit.
The Japanese high commissioner also showed interest in setting up an electric vehicle manufacturing unit in collaboration with world-renowned Toshiba Group.
During the meeting, the progress on setting up of a centre for excellence in the IT sector at Mohali was also taken up.
UAE Ambassador Dr Ahmad AL Banna apprised the chief minister of setting up of a mega food park in collaboration with EMAAR.
A team from the UAE Ministry of Food Security would soon visit Punjab to finalise modalities in this regard, he said
He also sought the chief minister's intervention to prevail upon the Union Ministry of Civil Aviation to get some flights diverted to Amritsar to ease the heavy air traffic at various other existing international airports, thus boost the trade activities between the two sides.
