Months before polls, UP makes final pitch for foreign investments

Ahead of the Assembly elections, the BJP government in Uttar Pradesh is making a strong pitch for foreign investment and global business partnerships at the fourth Uttar Pradesh International Trade Show, with more than 600 foreign buyers from 88 countries expected to participate in the five-day event in Greater Noida.

The trade show, being held from September 25 to 29 at the India Expo Centre & Mart, will bring together more than 1,000 Indian sellers, exporters, manufacturers and MSMEs with overseas buyers. The government is positioning the event not merely as an exhibition of Uttar Pradesh's products but as a platform to showcase the state as a manufacturing, sourcing and investment destination.

The fourth edition of the expo has grown bigger with Yogi Adityanath government making one final pitch for increased foreign investments. UP has partnered with six countries—Japan, Russia, Vietnam, Austria, Singapore and Belarus—for this edition of the expo. Last year, it had only Russia as the state partner. About 604 buyers from 88 countries have already registered to participate.


Last year, 550 buyers from 72 countries had participated. The partnerships are expected to facilitate engagement in trade, investment, manufacturing, technology and innovation. Chief minister Yogi Adityanath is also scheduled to meet foreign delegations to explore investment opportunities, sourcing requirements and industrial collaborations.

The government's investment pitch comes against the backdrop of a sharp rise in Uttar Pradesh's exports. According to figures in the state's trade promotion note, exports crossed the ₹2 lakh crore mark in FY2025-26, reaching ₹2,01,241 crore, compared with around ₹88,000 crore in 2017-18.

The state is now India's fifth-largest exporting state. But the numbers also reveal the concentration of this export growth. Gautam Buddha Nagar, home to the Noida-Greater Noida industrial belt, accounts for nearly half of UP's exports at ₹97,703 crore. Ghaziabad, Kanpur Nagar, Moradabad and Agra follow at a considerable distance.

The composition of exports has also changed. Electrical machinery and electronics have emerged as the largest export category at ₹46,960 crore, ahead of meat and meat products at ₹25,756 crore and woven garments at ₹16,657 crore.

The manufacturing base has expanded alongside exports. UP had around 14,000 registered factories in 2017; the number has since risen to approximately 32,000. Electronics companies including Samsung, Dixon, Lava and the HCL-Foxconn joint venture have expanded the Noida-Greater Noida cluster, while the defence corridor and traditional hubs such as Bhadohi and Agra add to the manufacturing base.

Yet the government's bigger challenge will be converting the expo's business-to-business (B2B) meetings into actual investment and export orders. At UPITS 2025, 31,650 B2B meetings resulted in more than 3,900 signed MoUs worth $425 million, while projected downstream business was estimated at ₹12,500 crore.

The government, however, does not publicly release detailed post-event conversion data tracking how many such agreements translate into purchase orders and repeat shipments.