On Tuesday, Prime Minister Narendra Modi will inaugurate the eighth edition of the Vibrant Gujarat Summit in Gandhinagar, kicking off the flagship business conference of the Gujarat government. Companies from all over the globe are likely to sign more than 20,000 agreements to invest in the state in sectors ranging from financial services to health and education, according to information on the the official website of the Summit.
This year, the four-day business extravaganza will centre around the theme of “Sustainable Economic and Social Development”.
The biennial Summit is being attended by at least 4,000 participants, including business leaders, company representatives, government officials, policymakers as well as members of the academia looking to share knowledge and insights. The stated objective of the summit is to make Gujarat “the most developed state in India by 2030” both “economically and socially”.
The summit comes a day after Prime Minister Modi inaugurated India's first international stock exchange at the GIFT City near Gandhinagar. Termed India INX, the exchange has been created by the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) as the first landmark in a series of new financial centres planned at the GIFT City.
At the launch of India INX, PM Modi had said that the idea of an international exchange was put before him in 2013 and the Bombay Stock Exchange signed the memorandum of agreement for the same in the 2015 edition of Vibrant Gujarat.
This year's edition has multiple initiatives on the cards especially in the field of education, as more than 100 memoranda of understanding (MoUs) are expected to be inked during the course of the summit including setting up of universities in the state and skill development initiatives, according to the official website.
This year, the total investment pledged by companies is expected to touch more than Rs 25 lakh crore, wire agency PTI reported earlier. Of the Rs 40 lakh crore investment that has been pledged between 2003 and 2011, only 8 percent have actually materialised, indicating that the event might be losing sheen, Bloomberg reported earlier.
The guest list for the Summit includes foreign business and political leaders including John Chambers, chairman of CISCO, Portuguese Prime Minister Antonio Costa, Serbian Prime Minister Aleksander Vucic, Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta and French Foreign Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault, who have already confirmed their participation.
Domestic companies like the Adani Group, Reliance Group, Ultratech Cement, NTPC , Sintex Ltd., Torrent Group and Zydus Group are expected to pledge big-ticket investments. Other corporate leaders present at the summit include Anand Mahindra of the Mahindra Group, Shashi Ruia of the Essar Group, and Pankaj Patel of Cadila Pharmaceuticals Ltd.
The key speakers at Tuesday's event include:
- Ratan Tata, Interim Chairman, Tata Sons
- Mukesh Ambani, Chairman & Managing Director, Reliance Industries
- Gautam Adani, Chairman, Adani Group
- Toshihiro Suzuki, Chief Executive Officer, Suzuki Motor Corp
- John Chambers, Chairman, CISCO
- Prem Watsa, Founder, Chairman & Chief Executive Officer, Fairfax Financial Holdings
The partner countries this year include Australia, Canada, United Kingdom, United States of America and Singapore among others. Organisations partnering with the Vibrant Gujarat summit include U.K. India Business Council, US India Business Council, Indo-Canada Chamber of Commerce and British Council.
Among Indian industry bodies, Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FICCI), Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) are also partners at the Summit.
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