Mamata invites UK investors to Bengal

London: Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Monday urged investors to come to Bengal where the government is business friendly and talent is unlimited.

"We are business friendly and a pro-active government that does not encourage 'negative' politics. So talent in Bengal is unlimited," she said while addressing the FICCI-UKIBC roundtable here on Monday afternoon. State Finance minister Amit Mitra and Chief Secretary Malay De were also present at the meeting which was held at St. James Court Hotel.

The Chief Minister said there was not only surplus power but the government also has land banks and to acquire land is not a problem in Bengal anymore. She also added that the workers in Bengal are excellent and extremely committed and hardworking.

Referring to the erstwhile Left Front government, she said 76 lakh man-days were lost during its regime while, now, it has come down to zero. "The workers are excellent and we politicians often disturb them," she said on a lighter note.

Pointing out that to train up the state government officials, they are being sent to Oxford and Cambridge Universities. "We regularly send our officers to Oxford and Cambridge Universities and also to Singapore."

Banerjee said her government cares for the poor and downtrodden and "nearly 90 percent of the people have been benefitted by one scheme or the other implemented by the state government."

Projecting her recent feat with Kanyashree Prakalpa bagging the United Nation's Public Service award for Asia Pacific, she said it was an extremely helpful scheme for the girl child and has won worldwide accolades.

Industrialists from Bengal who were present at the meeting included Purnendu Chatterjee, Harshvardhan Neotia, Tarun Jhunjhunwalla from Reliance, Umesh Chowdhury, Keshav Bangur, Rudra Chatterjee, Mayank Jalan, Sumit Dubriwal, Partha Ghosh and Srikant Venkatesh.

Eighteen representatives from different companies, Oxford University and banks joined the roundtable.

The Centre of attraction was, of course, Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, who with her natural charm and warmth approached one and all individually even before the session began.

Those who attended Monday's meeting included Lord Davies of Abersoch of UK India Business Council, Bruce Bucknell, British Deputy High Commission, Kolkata, Vip Jain of ABJ Drones, Larry Stone of British Telecom and Stephanie Farr of Diageo. There was Amit Roy from Engas UK Limited, John Alessi from Eurocentres, Charles Conroy from The Greenbank Group UK, Steve Buckley from OCS Group, Anish Patel from PwC, Unni Chowallur from Standard Chartered Bank, Willam Carson from Teleperformance UK & RSA, Philipe Matiere from Matiere Bridges and Kevin Mc Cole from UK Business Council. Rajib Basu and Richard Briant from Oxford University and Alister Cory from Oxford University Science Park also attended the meeting.

Ashu Jain of ABJ Academy, Natasha Burroughs, Greg Gardner and Frances Taylor all from the Department of International Trade, Government of UK and Guy Harrison, Foreign Commonwealth Office, Government of UK were also present as observers. Banerjee is expected to attend a dinner at LN Mittal's residence later in the evening.