State signs MoUs worth Rs 1,650 cr at NRI meet

Though Chief Minister Siddaramaiah skipped the Pravasi Bharatiya Divas held here to woo expatriate Indians to invest in Karnataka, his government on Friday signed five MoUs for Rs 1,650 crore worth of investments.

The government signed an open-ended MoU with Poland India Business Council for bilateral co-operation for promoting investments in areas like energy, tourism, culture, waste management, manufacturing, information technology, and education.

Minister for Tourism and Higher Education R V Deshpande led the Karnataka delegation. He challenged the claim of Gujarat to be the most vibrant state in terms of industrial development.

“If there is any vibrant state in the country, it is not Gujarat, but Karnataka. We have transparency, quick decision-making, homely atmosphere and ease of doing business,” he told the expatriate Indians on the concluding day of the PBD-2015 on Friday.

The Gujarat government is organising a Vibrant Gujarat summit in Gandhinagar from January 11 to 13 to woo investments from around the world.

Though Siddaramaiah didn’t attend the PBD, a video of his appeal to the expatriates was played at the beginning of the session.

“We recently launched a new industrial policy for 2014-2019, giving importance to the manufacturing sector and offered liberal incentives and concessions. Karnataka is actively promoting industry in the proposed Chennai-Bangalore-Chitradurga Industrial Corridor and Bangalore-Mumbai Economic Corridor projects, which will be models for the entire country,” he said.

Deshpande noted that Karnataka benefited enormously by its association with the NRIs. “Our IT industry now employs 11 lakh people with revenues of over Rs 200,000 crore a year, of which Rs 165,000 crore are exports,” he said.

“Bengaluru has become the ‘startup capital of India with over 4,000 startups and around 1,000 startups every year. There are startups in technology, medical science, hospitals, biotechnology, high-tech manufacturing and design, electronics, retail and e-commerce, etc, all at the cutting edge.”
DH News Service