MP to enhance investment policies to compete with East Asia

Madhya Pradesh will use an "ease of doing business" study from a Singapore-based think tank to enhance investment policies to benchmark and compete the East Asian countries, a top official said here today.
The study, which will also track the effectiveness of current policies in the state, will be presented by the Asia Competitiveness Institute (ACI) of the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy under a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) signed on July 20 2015 through the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII).
"We have to build capacity on ease of doing business and see what other East Asian economies are doing (relating to attracting investments)," Principal Secretary MP government Mohammed Suleman told PTI.

"We have to ultimately benchmark and compete with the East Asians," Mohammed said.
Mohammed noted that ACI has comprehensive studies on ease of doing businesses in the East Asian countries.
Mohammed pointed out that the state government will address all issues relating to investments such as the start of businesses, company laws, and enforcement of contracts.

"There are issues that we can make more efficient by use of technology," he said.
Elaborating, he said the use of technology would enable overseas businessmen to conduct business activities online. Madhya Pradesh has been attracting strong investments in a wide range of industries, led by textile, solar, automobile, pharmaceuticals and mobile phone manufacturing.

The state continues to promote investment projects internationally, with Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan set to lead a business delegation to South Korea and Japan in the first week of next month, said Mohammed.
Meanwhile, ACI Co-Director Associate Professor Tan Khee Giap said his think tank would prepare detailed studies on ease of doing business for Madhya Pradesh as well as for Andhra Pradesh, Bihar, Chhattisgarh, Odisha and CII.
ACI signed the MoUs with CII and Andhra Pradesh in March this year, followed up the MoUs with Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh and Bihar in July and penned one with Odisha on September 3.

"We will prepare detailed report which will look at their weak indicators and how these can be improved," Prof. Tan said.
The report will survey businessmen in the state through CII. ACI is expected to sign six more MoUs with Indian states through CII, with Rajasthan expected to be the next.