NITI Aayog meet: Over 160 Indian ambassadors & CMs explore areas to boost FDI

NEW DELHI: With the Narendra Modi government seeking to increase involvement of state governments in the country’s growth story, India’s ambassadors gathered in Delhi from across the world for a five-day annual meet engaged with a few chief ministers on Monday to explore new ways of boosting foreign direct investment.

On a day when Modi came up with the term ‘Team India’ to forge cooperative federalism between the Centre and the states, the country’s envoys from over 160 countries met Gujarat Chief Minister Anandiben Patel to discuss better avenues of cooperation between the state and the diplomats.

Gujarat has been the top destination for FDI in India for over a decade. External affairs ministry officials indicated that new areas of investment are being explored and the Indian embassies can be catalysts in the process.

Besides Patel, Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu was also closeted with the senior diplomats with an eye on attracting additional FDI, officials said. Naidu is known to be proactive since his first stint as CM to attract investors and support of global financial institutions.

The new capital of Andhra Pradesh in Vijaywada will be a smart city with assistance from Japan and Singapore. US firms will develop a smart city in Visakhapatnam as agreed between PM Modi and US President Barack Obama. There is a strong presence of Indian diaspora from both Andhra Pradesh and Gujarat.

Officials said that issues concerning the diaspora also figured in the meetings between the chief ministers and diplomats. In his address to the envoys on Saturday, Modi had said that the NITI Aayog has recognised the Indian diaspora “as a great strength and heads of missions must come up with innovative ways in which to positively build upon this strength”.

This is the first occasion when chief ministers met the ambassadors at the annual Heads of Missions conference. The move comes after the external affairs ministry created a new division last year named ‘States’ to act as a catalyst between foreign investors and the state governments.

To tap the potential of landlocked states of Northeast, the chief secretaries from the region are scheduled to meet the Indian ambassadors on Tuesday. These eight states which border Nepal, Bhutan, Bangladesh, Myanmar and China have attracted very little FDI till now.

The Centre wants to make these states key stakeholders in its ‘Act East Policy’ by improving connectivity, people-to-people contacts and trade links between the region and Southeast Asia.

The development of the Northeast with assistance from Singapore is a key theme at the ongoing visit of the Singapore President to India.