The Economic Times

Ahmedabad, Aug 14: Look who's making a pitch for Gujarat!. It's none other than the son of the soil - Mukesh Dhirubhai Ambani. The chairman of Reliance Industries is expected to lead a team of businessmen and bureaucrats from Gujarat to the US next month to market the state to foreign investors.

Ambani will lead a team of petrochemical and petroleum company executives as part of an initiative to market 'Vibrant Gujarat' , which is to be held in Ahmedabad in January, 2007. Mr Ambani's team will be one of the six teams which have been drawn up by the state government. Consultant Ernst & Young and the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (Ficci) will co-ordinate the business meetings.

Zydus Cadila group chairman Pankaj Patel will lead a pharma team to the US. While Gautam Adani will take a team of port and SEZ developers to south east Asia, Rasna chief Piruz Khambatta will lead a food & beverages team to Europe. Each team will comprise around six members, sources told ET. Chief minister Narendra Modi himself was planning to lead a team to China, Japan and Korea. But he is unlikely to go in view of the flood situation. "All other plans are on the track," sources added. A Reliance Industries executive said  Ambani has not confirmed his plan yet, but he is most likely to go.

Modi drew up this unique strategy of roping in high-profile industrialists to market the state after a dinner-meeting he had a few months ago in Mumbai with some of India's leading businessmen . He had sought their views as to how he could best market Vibrant Gujarat, a global investors' summit held every two years. There he was told that if ministers tried to sell Gujarat, it would not make the necessary noise. "Businessmen trust businessmen more than politicians," said a Mumbai-based businessman who was in that meeting.

Modi himself carries the ghost of the 2002 Gujarat riots. What's worse, last year the US declined to grant a visa to the chief minister when he was invited by an American hoteliers' association to attend a function. The US move dealt a big blow to the image of India's second most industrialised state on the global arena. Gujarat may top the list of states which attract the largest industrial investments , but it lags in attracting FDI.

Mr Ambani is expanding his petroleum business and is foraying into SEZs and retail. His father Dhirubhai set up the world's biggest grassroots refinery in hometown Jamnagar in the 1980s. This year, he raised money through a public issue to set up another refinery there on a 10,600-acre SEZ. US oil giant Chevron picked up a minority stake in Reliance Petroleum prior to the public offer.

Needless to say, a US visit to market Gujarat will be a win-win proposition for both Ambani and Modi. The visits of other businessmen will help them in forging relationships with investors and traders in the countries they visit and also in identifying future markets.