Bengal Business Summit: Investments galore as Ambani, others throng event

Representation from the central government was, however, missing at this summit, unlike the previous year

It had all the makings of a great investment summit: A galaxy of stars from India Inc and beyond, a venue spread across 4.5 million square feet with an auditorium to seat 3,200 people, and industrialists acknowledging a positive change in Bengal under Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee.
 

The first day of the two-day Bengal Global Business Summit turned out to be a massive show of strength for Banerjee, who had personally invited many of them. Among those from outside the city were L N Mittal, chairman and CEO, ArcelorMittal; Mukesh Ambani, chairman and managing director, Reliance Industries; Sajjan Jindal, JSW Group chairman; Niranjan Hiranandani, MD of Hiranandani group; and Kishore Biyani, founder and CEO, Future Group.
 

Banerjee wooed investors and made it clear she meant business. “We can dedicate ourselves to you. We don’t allow strikes even when it comes to our own partymen. We have to protect our asset, and industry is our asset,” she said. 
 

Her spirit was matched by industrialists. “Didi, under your leadership, West Bengal is becoming Best Bengal,” Ambani said. 

Reliance has emerged as a major investor in Bengal. In the past two years, it has invested more than Rs 150 billion, that’s triple of what it committed. Most of this investment was used in creating the Jio network. 
 

Going forward, it will be working with multiple partners to explore setting up next generation state-of-the-art electronics manufacturing facilities and make West Bengal a hub for innovation and hi-tech technologies for consumer devices, such as mobile phones and set-top boxes. In addition, an investment of Rs 50 billion was announced in Jio and the entire digital ecosystem, retail and petro-retail in the next few years.
 

Sajjan Jindal narrated his experience in Bengal and urged investors to make the state their first choice for investment. He has committed Rs 100 billion in the next few years in cement, paints and steel businesses. Banerjee inaugurated Jindal’s cement plant at Salboni in West Medinipur on Monday. 
 

Mittal didn’t commit any major investment in the immediate term, but said, “The initiatives I’m aware of, combined with Didi’s leadership and vision, lead me to feel very optimistic about the outlook for the state. The future is in your hands and I hope I will also be able to contribute in some meaningful way.” 
 

Uday Kotak, executive vice chairman and managing director of Kotak Mahindra Bank, said that in the 1980s, there was a problem with the mindset in the east, and that the west was considered to be the preferred investment destination. “But from what I have seen in Bengal and Kolkata, that mindset has, hopefully, changed forever,” he said, adding that his bank was a net lender to Bengal and that would continue.
 

SpiceJet is keen to not only have a “sea-plane hub in West Bengal” but to look for manufacturing opportunities also of this variant of airplanes in the state. The company’s chairman, Ajay Singh, added, “We are looking at connecting China and other Asian countries from Kolkata.” 
 

Sanjiv Goenka, chairman of the RP-Sanjiv Goenka Group, who has already invested over Rs 200 billion in the state, assured of further investment in the state. The group will build a second world-class hospital beside its existing medical centre, Woodlands, and will be setting up an FMCG park in the city. A new carbon black plant will also be set up in Durgapur and around Rs 10 billion will be invested to strengthen its existing power distribution network.
 

Representation from the central government was, however, missing at the summit. In 2016, four key ministers from the Centre — Arun Jaitley, Piyush Goyal, Nitin Gadkari, and Suresh Prabhu — were present.