Piyush Goyal advises states to boost tourism sector to attract investors

Railways Minister Piyush Goyal on Sunday suggested all state administrations to build good infrastructure around tourist attractions to "attract investments in the tourism sector".

Addressing the Uttarakhand Investors Summit in Dehradun, the Union Minister said that tourism is the key business attraction of every state. "There is need to build infrastructure around tourism services to attract investment. There can be nothing better than infrastructure built around a central theme that comes naturally to every citizen of Uttarakhand. This is where tourism comes in," he said.

Goyal said, "Despite being the very first summit, we have already received investment proposals worth over Rs 75,000 crore. For the state the size of Uttarakhand, this is very significant. I was immensely pleased to hear that a state with barely one crore population has Gross Domestic Product (GDP) upwards of Rs 2.15 lakh crore last year, and a per capita income of Rs 1,70,000. This is truly remarkable for a small sized hill state."

Urging people to focus on developing Uttarakhand in tourism sector, Goyal said, "Every nation, state and city has a unique selling proposition, better known as USP within business circles. We need to identify our own USP and build up our economic development around that USP. Let's focus on how we can put Uttarakhand on the world map. It is always the early bird that gets the first advantage, and we have the natural advantage of knowing what the state has to offer."

Uttarakhand hosted its first-ever investors' conclave - 'Destination Uttarakhand: Investors Summit' on Sunday. The two-day summit will conclude on Monday with the closing session being chaired by Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh.

Earlier in the day, Prime Minister Narendra Modi inaugurated the summit and said that the country is going through a period of rapid transformation.

The Prime Minister added that new India is a great destination for investment, and "Destination Uttarakhand" represents this spirit.

Various industrialists from ITC Limited, Reliance Industries Limited, Azure Power, Pawan Hans, Amul, Vardhman, and Hero MotoCorp are participating in the summit. Investors from Japan, Czech Republic, Argentina, Mauritius and Nepal are also taking part in it.