Investors rushing to Gujarat

AHMEDABAD: When Reliance group chairman Mukesh Ambani got up to announce investments worth a whopping Rs 67,550 crore in Gujarat as the who’s who of India Inc looked on, Vibrant Gujarat’s stock soared to dizzying heights on Friday morning.

Announcements of big ticket deals were made in rapid succession at the Vibrant Gujarat Global Investors’ Summit 2007 by top India Inc honchos, right from Tata group’s Ratan Tata to ICICI Bank’s KV Kamath, Essar group’s Shashi Ruia, A V Birla group’s Kumar Mangalam Birla, Adani group’s Gautam Adani and Torrent group’s Sudhir Mehta.

By end of the day one of two-day meet, the state had inked a mind-boggling 104 MoUs worth Rs 2,51,967 crore across sectors like oil and gas, power, chemicals and petrochemicals, ports and SEZs.

Leading the race were the centre pieces of Gujarat’s future development — SEZs with investments worth Rs 1,42,685 crore (26 MoUs) followed by power sector with Rs 55,139 crore (11 MoUs), oil and gas with Rs 19,488 crore (19 MoUs), chemicals and petrochemicals with Rs 14,416 crore (26 MoUs), ports with Rs 10,474 crore (10 MoUs), urban development with Rs 6985 crore, railway projects at Rs 400 crore and others at Rs 2380 crore.

Evidently, it was Gujarati pride on its best display when Ambani thundered: “Reliance is a Gujarati company. It is an Indian company and it is a global company. That is how it was conceived by my father Shri Dhirubhai Ambani.”
“The vision of Vibrant Gujarat reflects Reliance’s dream of its own future. Reliance remains committed to Gujarat to make this a reality,” Ambani added.

Birla said his group would invest around Rs 2100 crore in various manufacturing facilities for cement and textiles in the state.