Meltdown to hit investment from US for Vibrant Summit

Few companies show interest in signing MoUs.

The Vibrant Gujarat Global Investors Summit (VGGIS) scheduled for January next year will bear the brunt of meltdown in terms of investment from the country hit hardest by financial bloodletting – the United States.

The delegations that visited US last month to garner investment commitments have met with little success in drawing a number of participants to invest at the summit.

A handful of companies from US have shown interest to sign MoUs at the summit to the delegation which visited the West Coast, said government sources close to the development.

A couple of companies that are likely to invest at the Summit include California based Infinilux that is into energy efficient lightning besides food and agro company Deep Food, said sources close to the development.

 

Among the two delegations to the US, the West Coast delegation was led by R J Shah, principal chief industries advisor while the East Coast team was led by M M Shrivastav, principal secretary for energy and petrochemicals.

The delegates included Shaleen Sharma, MD of Gujarat Gas Co Ltd, Mahesh Babu, CEO of IL&FS, Mahendra Vyas, advisor of Electrotherm (India), Sonal Vaghela, associate, Ernst & Young and Sushil Handa, founder of Claris Lifesciences.

“Many companies whom we met have shown interest to come and participate in the summit. We cannot say anything about MoUs or investment at this point,” said a senior government official who was part of the delegation.

The delegation has held meetings with companies including Google, Northrop Grumman, Port of Long Beach, Port of Los Angles, Port of Seattle, Signet Solar, IDC Group, Solar Integrated, Instastol, American Technologies Corp and PHY Chip Corporation.

An industrialist who was a part of the delegation said that the focus this time around was on small companies and SMEs.