Gandhinagar, Sep 4 (IANS): Gujarat Chief Minister Vijay Rupani, the only Chief Minister to be invited to the US-India Strategic Partnership Forum's (USISPF) third leadership summit, on Friday said that Gujarat presented great opportunities for the US companies and was developing facilities for the pharmaceutical sector in the state. He invited the US API companies to invest in Gujarat and tie-up with Indian pharmaceutical companies.
Speaking at the five-day special public session on 'Navigating New Challenges' Rupani said, "Gujarat presents great opportunities to the US companies. We are developing robust infrastructural facilities for pharmaceutical sector in the form of a Bulk Drug Park in Bharuch and Medical Device Park near Rajkot."
The special public session was hosted by the USISPF to focus on the investment opportunities in Gujarat. "I invite the startups in US and Gujarat to join hands and start a formalized startup engagement programme to develop business ecosystems in diverse areas like semi-conductors, electronics and e-vehicles," the Chief Minister said.
"The state government will appoint a senior nodal officer from the Chief Minister's Office (CMO) to facilitate American companies to partner with Gujarat," Rupani said.
The CM said that Gujarat was open for tie-ups in life sciences, defence, petrochemicals, clean energy, warehousing and logistics apart from the pharmaceutical and healthcare sectors.
The CM in his address to the session mentioned that the government had recently released the New Industrial Policy 2020, with provisions like relocation benefits for companies moving from outside Gujarat especially from other countries.
"In a bold move, the GST regime has been done away with in the new policy and instead we have given incentives on Fixed Capital Investment (FCI). The policy also avails land on a long-term lease," Rupani added.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi, US Vice-President Mike Pence, Indian External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar, Minister of Commerce and Industry Piyush Goyal, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman, Minister of Communications and Information Technology Ravi Shankar Prasad, Indian Ambassador to the US Taranjit Sandhu, US Secretary of Commerce Wilbur Ross as well as John Chamber of JC2 Venture were some of the keynote speakers at the week-long virtual summit.
USISPF Chairman John Chambers, Chairman Emeritus of Cisco and founder and CEO, JC2 Ventures, who had led one of the largest delegations to the Vibrant Gujarat Global Investors' Summit (VGGIS) 2019 welcomed the Gujarat CM to the session.