annual report1-final.qxd - Overseas Indian

Pravasi Bharatiya Divas
Pravasi Bharatiya Divas
Pravasi Bharatiya Divas
Pravasi Bharatiya Divas
THE Prime Minister
saluted the overseas
Indians for their
work and
professional ethos
that have made
India proud
investment. While looking at the Indian scenario, it
was mentioned that, last year, 3.4 million foreign
tourists visited, contributing to $4,810 million as
foreign exchange earnings. It further focused on
AP as a tourism destination, which had grown over
the years with even the number of international
visitors increasing by 23.5 percent. In the end, it
was pointed out that AP would be promoting travel
and tourism segments like leisure, business,
health and family at various places.
The third presentation focused on AP as an IT
hub. AP was thriving to become the No. 1 IT/ITeS
destination in the country and would soon be the
hardware hub in the country. The State had
achieved exports target of Rs. 69,000 crore, providing
3,00,000 direct employment and 12,00,000 indirect
employment. AP had also framed an ‘ICT
Policy 2005-2010 — Infrastructure & Incentives’.
Now, it aimed to create state-of-the art/world-class
physical infrastructure for IT for plug & play mode,
incubation centres, built-to-suite space, IT campuses
and IT/ITeS/hardware product-specific Special
Economic Zones. Now, the focus was shifting to
Tier-II cities like Visakhapatnam, Vijayawada,
Warangal and Tirupati.
The last presentation was made by APInvest.
The agency was the first contact point for NRIs.
This was an agency that promoted investment and
development in key sectors and staffed with high
quality talent from the private sector. It was
equipped with deep linkages to the Government to
ensure successful implementation of suggested
reforms.
The main sectors of concentration were IT and
ITeS, tourism, food processing/horticulture, hi-tech
manufacturing, pharmaceuticals, biotechnology,
textile and leather, retail and real estate, education
and health services.
The presentation also had a message from the
Chief Minister: “Investments are critical to economic
growth; focused efforts are an imperative to
drive growth in chosen sectors of the economy and
provide convenience and comfort to the investing
community. APInvest is the single point of contact
that facilitates investments in Andhra Pradesh.
Welcome to Andhra Pradesh. Get the APInvest
advantage,” the message said.
It was further emphasised that APInvest was a
single-point agency for development of infrastructure
projects in AP, having the Government as the
developer leading to public-private partnerships.
The session generated great interest among the
delegates with the chair stating that AP was a progressive
State and looking for fruitful partnership
with overseas Indians who were welcome to invest
in any of the areas/sectors.
" Bihar
The session was chaired by J.K. Datta. Chief
Minister Nitish Kumar was the chief guest of the
session, which was also attended by the State’s
Deputy Chief Minister, Sunil Modi.
Ajit Kumar made a Powerpoint presentation on
Bihar — the resources, opportunities and priority
development sectors. He made a strong case for
investing in Bihar especially in the areas of horticulture,
IT and tourism. For the new Government
in Bihar, building infrastructure was a top priority
to lure investors. A number of new policies were
showcased that pointed to various directions that
development in Bihar was expected to take.
The second presentation outlined the incentives
and facilities for industry in Bihar. Appealing that
Bihar needed to get back its previous glory of its
importance in India, the presentation stated that,
for new industrial growth in Bihar, the State
Investment Promotion Board was the centralised
agency to deal with all such matters.
The third presentation began with an introduc-
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