Kolkata, Jan 6 (IANS): The fourth edition of the two-day Bengal Global Business Summit (BGBS), scheduled to start on Jan 7, will bring in a global delegation of nearly 500 people from the industry with heavyweights from the union government, officials said.
Hosted by Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, it will see union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley and Roads, Highways and Shipping Minister Nitin Gadkari attending the event besides a host of industrialists.
Delegates from 19 countries would take part in the industry summit. The participating countries include US, Britain, Japan, China, South Korea, Taiwan, Malaysia, Singapore, Luxembourg and Australia.
The British delegation would be led by former minister and chairman of the UK India Business Council Patricia Hewitt.
The Japanese delegation would include officials from Japan Chamber of Commerce and Industry and the chief executive officer of Mitsubishi Chemicals, Hiroaki Ishizuka while the delegation from South Korea will be represented by the director of the Korean Trade Investment Promotion Agency (Kotra) F.H. Kim. The global senior vice-president of Samsung Electronics and top officials of Doshan will also be a part of Korean delegation.
The focus sectors for this year's summit is urban infrastructure and housing, IT and ITeS, food processing, horticulture and floriculture, MSME and textiles, healthcare, education, manufacturing, energy and infrastructure, hospitality, tourism, entertainment and financial services.
The BGBS will bring to the fore the readiness of the state in terms of taking on challenges and meeting aspirations, said the state's ruling Trinamool Congress. The vision for this year's business summit is to create a blueprint that will explore new possibilities of creating a resurgent Bengal, it added.
"West Bengal has been taking a number of initiatives to rejuvenate the industrial scenario in the state. The state government has been undertaking several policy measures and incentives for the overall socio-economic development of the economy," the Trinamool said on their website.
Recent observations from the Central Statistical Organization show that from 2013 the state's GDP grew by 8.62 percent where as the nation's was 4.7 percent. Industry-wise too, the growth has been phenomenal - 8.74 percent while India's grew by 0.4 percent, the party said.
"The rise for agriculture and service sectors have been equally impressive. Also, capital expenditure has grown by 44 percent, indicating that massive investments in infrastructure," it added.