Andhra eyes big-ticket deals at CII Partnership Summit

Adi Godrej, Walmart CEO Krish Iyer, Kishore Biyani of Future Group and WTO Director Shishir Priyadarshi are likely to attend

Andhra Pradesh is looking to sign some big ticket deals at the three-day CII Partnership Summit beginning Sunday in Visakhapatnam to attract foreign investment and turn the state into a manufacturing hub.

"We are expecting some big ticket MoUs. There are two objectives. One, we want to make Andhra a manufacturing hub so that the foreign investment flows into the state, then make it a springboard for them to supply to Southeast Asian countries because of the long coast and port facilities," state's Advisor Communications Parakala Prabhakar told PTI.

The government is offering ease of doing business and it has already been ranked number two in the country in a World Bank study, he said. It has also brought in different investor-friendly policies, he added.

He further informed: "We have a hardware policy, a manufacturing policy, an infrastructure policy. We have recently got a maritime board in place. We have the land lease policy".

About 40 countries are likely to be represented in the summit and large industrial houses in sectors including manufacturing, services, IT, hospitality and tourism would participate in the event, he said adding Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu would visit the World Economic Forum summit in Davos later this month.

The visit would be an opportunity to follow up with the international investors, Prabhakar said.

Union ministers Arun Jaitley, M Venkaiah Naidu, Suresh Prabhu, Ashok Gajapati Raju, Prakash Javadekar, Nirmala Sitharaman, NITI Aayog Vice Chairman Arvind Panagariya, CII President Sumit Majumdar, CII DG Chandrajit Banerjee are expected to attend the summit, an official release said.

Besides, Godrej Group Chairman Adi Godrej, Walmart CEO Krish Iyer, Kishore Biyani of Future Group, Shoppers' Stop Chairman Neil Raheja, Reliance Retail CEO Damodar Mall, Cisco President Anil Menon, WTO Director Shishir Priyadarshi and Rolls Royce (India) President Kishore Jayaraman would be among the top industrialists who are likely to attend the event, it said.