Global biz summit to attract investments

In order to attract investments, West Bengal government is organising a two-day global business summit in January in Kolkata with special focus on areas like start-ups, design and IT/ITes, among others.

“The focus of the summit would be on emerging areas such as start-ups, design, intelligent cities, IT/ITes, financial hub, industrial infrastructure, skill and services and cluster leadership for MSME sectors,” West Bengal Finance Minister Amit Mitra told reporters here.

Pointing out some of the macro economic data, Mitra said the state gross value added (GVA) at factor cost has seen a consistent rising trend with growth in 2014-15 at 10.48 per cent, 9.67 per cent in 2013-14 and 8.18 per cent in 2012-13.

“We have consistently been taking initiatives to rejuvinate the industrial scenario and has observed a huge surge in capital expenditure, planned expenditure and social expenditure in recent years while introducing a slew of policy reforms and easy of doing business,” the minister said.

He said many players like TCS, Cognizant, Wipro, Dalmia, JSW, Emami, Tata Hitachi, who already are present, are either expanding their business or setting up new projects in the state.

Mitra said the summit, which will start on January 8, would help investors understand the potential of the state in various sectors and will create opportunities to interact with policy makers and government officials.

In the last business summit in January 2015, the state saw announcement of an investment of Rs 2.43 lakh crore.