Bangalore, Jan 13 (IANS): About 30 firms signed an expression of interest (EoI) with the Karnataka government to invest a whopping Rs.52,000 crore in diverse sectors across the state at the sixth edition of Vibrant Gujarat summit in Gandhinagar, a senior official said Sunday.
"About 30 firms held one-to-one meetings with our Large and Medium Industries Minister Murugesh R. Nirani and officials of the ministry during the three-day summit (Jan 11-13). The proposed investments are in power, biotechnology, pharma, aerospace, IT infrastructure and clean energy," Industry Secretary M.N. Vidyashankar told IANS here.
Among companies which signed the EoI are Zydus Cadilla, Gitam Energy Generation, Creative Infocity, Park Power Generation, Nanotech Bio Sciences Technologies, Entire Ceramics, Geo Syndicate Power and the US-based Global Solar Florida.
"Russian minister for economic development (Elvira Nabiulina) and representatives of the UK Trade & Investment, Canada Trade Council, Frankfurt Trade Council and Japan Trade Office met Nirani and officials to discuss prospects of investing in the state," the secretary recalled on return from the summit.
About 100 business delegates from the state also participated in 120 business-to-business networking meetings at the state pavilion in the summit.
"The state's trade promotional agency -- Visveswaraya Industrial Trade Centre (VITC) held discussions with 10 foreign trade bodies from Australia, Bahrain, Botswana, Britain, Canada, Germany, Holland, Japan, Poland, Thailand and Yaroslavl in Russia to explore investment opportunities, joint ventures and collaborations across the state," Vidyashankar added.
The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) ruled government in the state already held two Global Investors' Meet (GIM) in 2010 and 2012 to woo investments from across the country and overseas.
The second GIM edition, held June 7-8, 2012 during the tenure of chief minister D.V. Sadananda Gowda, attracted a whopping Rs.7.2-trillion (Rs,7.20-lakh crore) worth investment proposals from 7,557 firms from across the country and overseas through 246 agreements, 415 expression of interests (EoIs) and 90 return on investments (RoIs) and commitments from 6,806 micro, small and medium enterprises (MSME) sector, with an employment potential for 1.9 million people.