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CII Partnership Summit in Bangalore

The 3-day summit from Jan. 17 will promote India as a profitable and stable investment destination

BUILDING POSITIVE PERCEPTION: Nandan Nilekani (right), Co-Chairman, Partnership Summit 2007 and CEO and Managing Director, Infosys Technologies, P. B. Mahishi (centre), Chief Secretary, Government of Karnataka, and M. Lakshminarayan, Chairman CII-Southern Region and Joint Managing Director, MICO, at a press conference in Bangalore on Saturday. — PHOTO: G. R. N. SOMASHEKAR

BANGALORE: Bangalore will host the Confederation of Indian Industry's Partnership Summit 2007 after a gap of five years, with the theme `Emergent India: New roles and responsibilities.

The three-day summit, which begins on January 17, would position India as a critical and responsible partner in geopolitics. It would be a platform to promote India as a profitable and stable investment destination, Nandan Nilekeni, Co-Chairman of the Summit and CEO and Managing Director of Infosys Technologies told reporters here on Saturday.

Speaking on behalf of the Karnataka Government, Chief Secretary P. B. Mahishi emphasised that attracting investment would not be a Bangalore-centric exercise but foreign companies would be told of the merits of other cities like Mysore and Mangalore, where more land at a lesser cost was easily available. The summit will be a high-level networking platform for local business leaders to meet 25 overseas trade delegations and 700 delegates from different countries.

CII Karnataka Chairman S. Gopalakrishnan said that while British Prime Minister Tony Blair was the chief invitee to the last Summit held here in 2002, this time it would be Portugal's President Anibal Antonio Cavaco Silvia. Among the key speakers will be the U.K. Chancellor of the Exchequer, Gordon Brown.

U.K.'s Secretary of State, Trade and Industry, Alistair Darling; WTO Director General, Pascal Lamy; former Hungarian Prime Minister, Peter Medgyessey; Minister for Foreign Affairs of Singapore, George Yong-Boon Yeo, Chairman of Knowledge Commission, Sam Pitroda; Sri Lanka's Minister for Enterprise Development, Rohitha Bogollagama, Minister for Economy of Chile, Alejandro Ferreiro and Minister of Industry of France, Francois Loos, will be among delegation leaders and key speakers.

Karnataka has reason to feel buoyant at the prospects of hosting the Summit; its hardware and software sectors are growing at the rate of 36 per cent each and software exports alone are forecast to reach $20 billion by 2010. The manufacturing industry is growing at an encouraging 25.6 per cent and the Gross Domestic State Product during 2004-05 is $25.93 billion, according to Mr. Mahishi.

The inaugural of the Summit will see the participation of Union Commerce and Industry Minister Kamal Nath and Karnataka Chief Minister H. D. Kumaraswamy.

The CII wants to promote the international event focused on building positive economic perceptions of India as a stable and profitable partner. The Karnataka region too is to be showcased as a credible business partner with a track record of having several international firms expanding their presence here.

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