Gujarat govt to display status of MoUs for the first time at 2019 summit

The biennial summit has shifted from being merely an investment meet to a knowledge-sharing and trade-facilitation platform

In a bid to further promote the success of its investment-cum-trade platform, the Gujarat government will for the first time showcase the status of pacts signed during the past summits at the upcoming ninth edition of Vibrant Gujarat Summit 2019.

The biennial summit, to be held on January 18-20, has shifted from being merely an investment meet to a knowledge-sharing and trade-facilitation platform.

"We have changed the format of the summit. It is now a business summit providing platform for networking to other states and nations to forge deals and share knowledge. We will also showcase what all projects have been committed and have taken shape from the MoUs (memorandum of understandings) signed during past summits," Mamta Verma, industries commissioner, Gujarat, told Business Standard.

Currently, the rate of project implementation, including commissioning and work-in-progress, of all the past MoUs put together is estimated to be around 65 per cent.

Unlike focus revolving around manufacturing sectors in the past summits, the ninth edition will highlight trade services, commerce, exports, agriculture and food processing, and industry 4.0 that will comprise robotics and artificial intelligence.

The summit will also focus on how Gujarat will take shape by 2022. "The summit will showcase progress on key projects such as Statue of Unity, Dholera Special Investment Region (SIR) and DREAM City in Surat which earlier looked futuristic but are now taking concrete shape," Verma said.

As with other past summits, several countries are requesting the government to officially partner the summit. Verma said there might be more partner countries in addition to the previous 12 partners, including Japan, Australia and the US.

"We would also like to further strengthen our ties with other countries where our people have settled," said Verma.

The state government will be sending in all 10 delegations comprising bureaucrats and industrialists to around 21 countries for roadshows ahead of the summit.

In the post GST era, the Gujarat government has started focusing a lot on services sector to continue to hold an edge over other states. "We have come out with specific policies in the services sector, including agri-business policy, IT policy, electronic policy, start-up policy, health policy and tourism policy, among others,” said Verma.

She said a solar-wind hybrid policy as well as retail policy were also in the works, apart from the government working out an action plan for the logistics sector ahead of the summit.