Investment Destination

Industry captains endorsed Gujarat as the country’s Investment Destination by committing 2,50,000 crore within one hour on the first day of the Vibrant Gujarat Global Summit on Wednesday. 

Everybody, from the Ambani brothers to Ratan Tata and Kumar Mangalam Birla, showered praise on Gujarat chief minister Narendra Modi, calling him the change agent of the decade. 

“The world looks at India and India looks at Gujarat,” said ICICI Bank chairman Chanda Kochhar, the only lady on the three-layered dais full of corporate leaders who together represent 19%, or 13.09 lakh crore, of the country’s market capitalisation. 

Mahindra & Mahindra vice-chairman Anand Mahindra said that the state administration is focused on outcome and not show. “You cannot afford not to be here,” he said, and told the chief minister: “Tell your critics you are doing a great job.” 

Thousands of foreign and Indian business delegates arrived in Gandhinagar on Wednesday morning to attend the biennial summit held at Mahatma Mandir, the newlybuilt venue, in the state capital. 

Speaking at the event, Mr Modi termed the summit as the biggest business event in the country, with representatives from 96 countries. 

Gujarat principal secretary Maheshwar Sahu said 14,90,000-crore ($325 billion) worth of investment proposals came from various industries on the first day of the summit. State government officials expect the total value of proposed projects at the end of the summit to easily cross 20 lakh crore. 

Vibrant Gujarat has been attracting sizeable investment proposals from domestic and foreign companies since its start in 2003. The last summit drew project plans worth 12.4 lakh crore. 

Several critics called these figures unrealistic and inflated, but state official said that 40% of the memoranda of understandings (MoUs) signed during the 2009 summit are being implemented and 60% projects inked in 2007 are off the ground. 

Leading the investors’ pack on the first day was the Adani Group, which committed 80,000 crore investments in ports and power. Anil Dhirubhai Ambani Group committed 50,000 crore for power and Essar Group promised 30,000-crore investments in energy, ports and water infrastructure. 

Larsen & Toubro committed 15,000 crore on infrastructure, while tractor-to-software group Mahindra & Mahindra signed six MoUs to invest 3,000 crore. 

Hindustan Construction Company (HCC), the company behind the troubled Lavasa township project in Maharashtra, said it will invest 1,200 crore to set up a renewable energy project within five years in the state. 

General Motors, which manufactures cars near Vadodara, will pump in 450 crore for expansion of the plant. 

HCC and infrastructure company Universal Success Enterprise were among the largest investors committing around 40,000 crore each during the last summit. The two companies were panned by state Congress leaders for inaction over two years. 

As for the number of MoUs, the highest was in the auto, engineering and ceramics sector, 308, for Rs 75,103 crore. In all, 2,076 MoUs were signed up against the backdrop of chief minister Narendra Modi declaring two days ago that the Vibrant Gujarat business summit is “not going to be an investment meet.”

2011 Vibrant Leaders

Gandhinagar: Top Industry Leaders on Wednesday signed memorandums of understanding (MoUs) worth Rs 14,90,929 crore on the first day of the Vibrant Gujarat business summit, which began here at the Mahatma Mandir here in Gandhinagar. This is nearly Rs 1.5 lakh crore more than the total MoUs that were signed up at the last summit, which took place exactly two years ago at the Science City in Ahmedabad. 

Talking to newspersons at the end of the first day of session, which included the inaugural ceremony followed by seminars on several different sectors like oil and gas, power, special investment regions, special economic zones, industrial parks, logistic parks and solar impulse, Maheshwar Sahu, principal secretary (industries) claimed this time all MoUs were “thoroughly screened” before being signed, so that there are no dropouts at the later stage. 

“During the screening of MoUs, we rejected 12 per cent of all MoUs which we found were not viable”, Sahu said, adding, “The summit, to which nearly 30,000 participants have registered, is proving to be a meeting of minds and a knowledge sharing platform.” The two-day Vibrant Gujarat Summit ends on Thursday afternoon with more MoUs and seminars on urban development, ports and transport, IT, and so on. 

The power sector had the biggest share in the amount of MoUs. In all, 48 MoUs for the sector were signed up, for Rs 3.05 lakh crore. This was followed by Rs 1.72 lakh crore worth of 16 MoUs in the financial sector. These MoUs are with major banks, including nationalized ones. State Bank of India alone has proposed to fund Rs 50,000 crore projects in Gujarat. “More MoUs in the sector will be signed with Gujarat International Finance Tec-City (GIFT) on Thursday”, a senior official said. 

This was followed by 41 MoUs with mineral-based industries like cement, silica and bauxite for Rs 1.35 lakh crore. Gujarat’s special economic zones (SEZs) invited 13 MoUs for Rs 1.23 lakh crore. The Petroleum, Chemical and Petrochemical Investment Region – a special investment region between Dahej and Bharuch as part of the Delhi-Mumbai Industrial Corridor (DMIC) – invited 153 MoUs worth Rs 73,546 crore. In the oil and gas sector, 16 MoUs for Rs 40,679 crore were signed up.

Vibrant Gujarat 2011

Gandhinagar: The first few minutes of the inaugural session of Vibrant Gujarat 2011 on Wednesday set the tone for events to unfold as investment promises worth $50 billion were announced within 50 minutes flat. 

By the end of the first day of the two-day international business meet — 5th in the series started by chief minister Narendra Modi in 2003 — eyes of thousands of delegates from the world over were virtually popping out. 

Memorandums of understanding (MoUs) for projects worth $333 billion (Rs 15 lakh crore) were signed. This staggering figure was higher than the total investment of $240 billion (Rs 12 lakh crore as per exchange rate then) promised in the previous summit held in January 2009. Even though actual investments during the subsequent downturn came only a trickle, Vibrant Gujarat has clearly branded itself as India’s biggest deal-maker. 

The biennial summit was not limited to attracting investments. Top industrialists, world political leaders and diplomats as well as corporate honchos and economists endorsed the Gujarat growth story at the jam-packed convention hall of the newly-built Mahatma Mandir, venue for the event planned more meticulously than ever before. Around 25,000 delegates are likely to participate in the two-day event. 

Terming the 21st century as not just the century of India but also that of the whole of Asia and Africa, a visibly pleased Modi said, “Vibrant Gujarat started as investment summits. It has now graduated to a much larger scale — from industrial development to inclusive growth. Our larger objective is global networking, knowledge and technology sharing.” Home-grown billionaire Gautam Adani symbolised the bullishness of Ahmedabad when said his group would invest over Rs 80,000 crore in ports, power and infrastructure projects. 

Captains of the industry like Ratan Tata of Tata group, Adi Godrej of Godrej, AM Naik of L&T, GVK Reddy of GVK group, Ajit Gulabchand of HCC too announced their plans even as they hailed the Gujarat story. Tata said his group will partner the state in providing transportation into the hinterland. The good thing about the state’s growth is that it is inclusive with rural population too is gaining out of the development, he said. According to prime minister of Rwanda Bernard Makuza, India was no longer an emerging economy but a worldwide leader. Hideaki Domichi, ambassador of Japan, which is a partner country for the summit, termed Gujarat is one of the best states to do business in. Ron Somers, president of the US-India Business Council, said he would want US to partner the next edition of the summit. 

Leader of Opposition in the Gujarat assembly Shaktisinh Gohil was not impressed by the show and said this “is a cosmetic excercise of megalomaniac Modi”. He said there was no transparency in the figures of actual investments on the ground. Besides, transfer of land to industry was breeding corruption.