At pre-Investment Summit meet in Delhi, J&K admin woos investors

20 January 2020

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Altaf Naqshbandi

NEW DELHI: At the Pre-Summit Investors’ Meet & Curtain-Raiser of the Global Investors’ Summit, planned to be held this year, Lt Governor Girish Chandra Murmu on Monday said that his administration intended to make “J&K an economic paradise” for investors.

“I would like to invite you all to take the lead in setting up your enterprises in Jammu & Kashmir”, he said.

Clarifying that today’s Pre-Summit Investors’ Interaction has been organized to deliberate with potential investors the scope of desired initiatives for creating an investor-friendly ecosystem, Mr Murmuru said that he wanted to make the participants interested in J&K.

Interestingly, the planned summit, originally scheduled to be held in October 2019, was cancelled due to lack of progress in generating the expected interest among J&K’s business groups and outside investors.

Even as more than 350 delegates from various sectors and leading organisations participated in Monday’s event, significantly, no dates have yet been finalized for the summit.

“This meeting was intended to engage with potential investors about the planned summit. There are still a lot of issues to be dealt with, including J&K business community’s subdued interest in the summit for they want more conducive political environment, restoration and release of political prisoners in J&K first”, an official of J&K government told Ziraat Times.

Outside investors have also desired more clarity about the business climate and enabling policies of the J&K government before making any decisions.

Besides senior J&K administration officials, Dr Jitendra Singh, Ministry of State (Independent Charge), Ministry of Development of North Eastern Region, Minister of State, Prime Minister’s Office, Government of India, B V R Subrahmanyam, Chief Secretary and Kewal Kumar Sharma, Advisor to Lieutenant Governor, J&K were present at the event.

According to J&K administration, the aim of the upcoming Global Investors’ Summit 2020 is to exhibit the different investment opportunities available in the newly formed UT of J&K in different sectors including Tourism, Film Tourism, Horticulture & Post Harvest Management, Agro and Food Processing, Mulberry production for silk, Health & Pharmaceuticals, Manufacturing, IT/ ITes, Renewable Energy, Infrastructure and Real Estate, Handloom and Handicraft and Education are to be the prime focus sectors of the summit.

Currently, Government of J&K is developing 2 IT parks, ICD in Samba and have identified industrial land bank of over 6000 Acre across 20 districts to develop State-of-the-Art Industrial Parks. Also, the J&K Government has removed the toll barrier to enable seamless inward and outward movement of raw materials and goods.

At Monday’s pre-summit investor’s meet & curtain-raiser, the state film along with the focus sector profiles and policies were introduced by Manoj Kumar Dwivedi, Commissioner/Secretary Industries & Commerce, J&K with the focus on the theme tag line; Explore (the opportunities in industries, infrastructure, policies in the region), Invest (in the new and existing investment options); Grow (prosper via incentives and strategic advantages in key sectors).

Jitendra Singh congratulated Hon’ble Lieutenant Governor Murmu for “taking such initiative at the right time and right place.”

Noting that J&K was not a “backward place”, and that it had the brightest and skilled people, B V R Subrahmanyam, Chief Secretary, Jammu & Kashmir, said, “ Jammu & Kashmir is little known about the places except what we have seen in the films, it is quite different what we know. I have read in a book that people in J&K don’t die from the disease but from the old age. 90% of apples are produced in Kashmir which makes it number in India.”

Key government officials like Shri Ravinder Kumar, MD, JKTPO and many other prominent dignitaries were present at the event.

The event was organised by Jammu and Kashmir Trade Promotion Organization (JKTPO), a nodal agency for Government of J&K along with Media Partner PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC), Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) as the National Partner and Ernst & Young as the knowledge partner.