Kolkata: Having faced criticism of failing to attract foreign investment into the state, West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee will visit Italy and Germany in September to scout for investments in the manufacturing and automobile industries.
Banerjee — who will be in the Vatican City to attend the canonisation ceremony of Noble Laureate Mother Teresa, who will be declared saint on September 4 — will also meet various chambers of commerce in both Italy and Germany to highlight the advantages of investing in the Indian state.
According to state finance and industry minister Amit Mitra, two leading German chambers of commerce — BVMW and the Association of German Chamber of Commerce and Industry (IHK) — have invited her to Germany. Apart from Munich, the capital of Bavaria, Banerjee is likely to visit other German cities as well.
A business delegation will accompany the chief minister, just like they did during her visit to the UK and Singapore.
BVMW mainly represents mid-sized companies in Germany, has 300 branches and organises 2,000 seminars every year.
“More than 2.70 lakh companies are members of BVMW and it employs 9 million workers,” Mitra said.
IHK is the apex chamber with three million entrepreneurs as its members.
The Germany trip will be Mamata’s fifth overseas and the first business trip in her second stint as the chief minister.
Mitra also said Kotra, the trade and investment promotion agency of South Korea, has agreed to open its first eastern India office in Kolkata. This will help in bringing in fresh investments from South Korea.
It is however ironic that Banerjee is welcoming automobile industry as once the Tata Group had to abandon their plans to manufacture the world’s cheapest car — Tata Nano — due to her protest over land acquisition in the state.
Banerjee still holds the view the state government should not be acquiring land for private investors, and some say it has become a stumbling block to setting up industries in the state.
“It is a major hurdle as large industries, especially automobile and manufacturing, need large [tracts of ] land, which private players will find very difficult to acquire especially due to the influx of middlemen and most importantly cost overruns,” an industrialist, who spoke on condition of anonymity said. “The state government has to find a solution to the problem.”
