Mukesh push for Vibrant Gujarat

AHMEDABAD: Look who’s making a pitch for Gujarat. It’s none other than Mukesh Ambani himself. The chairman of Reliance Industries, the country’s biggest private sector company, is expected to lead a high-profile team of businessmen and bureaucrats from Gujarat to the US next month, the purpose being to market the state to foreign investors.

Mr Ambani will head a team of petrochemical and petroleum company executives as part of an initiative to globally market ‘Vibrant Gujarat’, a biennial global investors’ summit due to be held in Ahmedabad in January ’07. Mr Ambani’s team is one of the six groups picked up by the state government for the whole exercise. Consultant Ernst & Young and the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (Ficci) will co-ordinate the business meetings.

Similarly, Zydus Cadila group chairman Pankaj Patel will lead a pharma team, also to the US. While Gautam Adani is headed for South East Asia, port and SEZ developers in tow, Rasna chief Piruz Khambatta is Europe-bound, along with a food and beverage team.

Each of these will comprise at least six members, featuring one senior bureaucrat, a government source told ET. The forthcoming business trips may have been necessitated by the fact that Gujarat may top the list of states on the industrial investment front, but lags behind in the FDI space.

Chief minister Narendra Modi himself was planning to lead a delegation to China, Japan and Korea. But he may drop the idea in view of the recent flood havoc in the state. “All other plans are on track,” the source said. A Reliance Industries executive said Mr Ambani has not confirmed his plan yet, but is most likely to go.

Mr Modi hit upon the strategy of roping in high-profile industrialists to market the state after a dinner meeting with some of India’s leading business tycoons in Mumbai a few months ago. But at the initial stage, things were just not conducive enough for the beleaguered CM. The ghost of the ’02 Gujarat riots was like a constant companion for him. What’s worse, last year the US declined a visa to the CM to attend a function organised by an American hoteliers’ association.

Needless to say, a US visit to market Gujarat will be a win-win proposition for both Mr Ambani and Mr Modi alike. The visits of other businessmen, too, will help them forge relationships with investors in the host countries and identify future markets.