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CPI(M) for smooth flow of FDI into West Bengal

Special Correspondent

Ministers to visit China, United States to interact with business leaders

KOLKATA: The Communist Party of India (Marxist) leadership would like to see foreign capital flow into West Bengal for industrial growth and employment generation. This is in keeping with Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee's moves to bringin foreign direct investment (FDI) to provide a boost to industry.

The State Government will be taking initiatives for this, and additional investments are expected before the Assembly elections next year, senior Polit Bureau member Jyoti Basu said here on Friday.

Commerce and Industry Minister Nirupam Sen is expected to visit China soon.

Finance Minister Asim Dasgupta will leave for the United States next month and will have interactions with business leaders.

The party's State secretary and Polit Bureau member, Anil Biswas, emphasised the need for steps to open up the State to FDI for the sake of greater industrialisation "without surrendering to private capital."

Lack of funds

Earlier this week, at a meeting organised by the party's Kolkata district committee, Mr. Biswas said in this era of liberalisation, the State Government had little option but to invite private capital as it did not have the requisite funds for industrial growth.

There was a need to strike a "balance between agitation and development" for the sake of the local economy.

The Left Front Government had decided as early as 1994, when Mr. Basu was Chief Minister, that private capital would have to be invited for industrial growth, Mr. Biswas said.

Land handed over

In a related development, land for the Rs. 250-crore motorcycle manufacturing plant at Uluberia, in Howrah district, was formally handed over to Indonesia's Salim Group by the West Bengal Industrial Development Corporation.

The group's chief, Benny Santoso, finalised the deal with Mr. Bhattacharjee on Thursday.

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CPI(M) for smooth flow of FDI into West Bengal

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