Bhubaneswar, Nov 30 (IANS): Odisha is fast emerging as a fulcrum of trade, commerce and industrialisation in eastern India and the Bay of Bengal region, Odisha Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik said here on Wednesday.
Patnaik said this while addressing the national executive council of the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FICCI) before inaugurating the third edition of Make in Odisha Conclave here at Janata Maidan.
He urged the FICCI to promote Odisha as a destination of choice for the investor community through all of their channels.
The state will continue to work with the industrial organisation to continue to work together in the near future towards bringing in investment and prosperity to Odisha, he said.
"Through Mission Shakti, our goal is to empower the women of our state to be model entrepreneurs and leaders," he said.
Patnaik urged the women wing of FICCI to work closely with the Mission Shakti department of the state to develop strategies for further strengthening the entrepreneurship ecosystem at the grassroots.
To attract big investors to Odisha, the state is organising the five-day long Make in Odisha Conclave, 2022.
The organisers have successfully managed to line up 124 speakers and schedule 38 events spanning all the conclave days. The state is expecting investment intents of more than Rs 6 lakh crore in this biennial investment summit.
It was expected that some eminent industrial captains like L.N. Mittal, Executive Chairman, Arcelor Mittal; Kumar Mangalam Birla, Chairman, Aditya Birla Group; Anil Agarwal, Chairman, Vedanta Resources Limited; Sajjan Jindal, Chairman, JSW Group; Naveen Jindal, Chairman, JSPL; T.V. Narendran, CEO & MD, Tata Steel would attend the Conclave.
Other than that, representatives from partner countries of Japan, Norway and Germany are also participating in the business summit.
The first edition of the conclave was held in 2016, in which, the state had received over 120 investment intents valued at over Rs 2 lakh crore while in 2018, the state received investment intentions valued at over Rs 4 lakh crore.
In 2020, the conclave could not be organised in view of the Covid-19 pandemic.