SAJ attends UP Investors Summit

Sir Anerood Jugnauth left Mauritius on Saturday 17th for India where he attended a two-day Investors Summit in Uttar Pradesh on 21st and 22nd February.  During his official visit, Sir Anerood Jugnauth will also hold discussions with the Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh, Yogi Adityanath, on the offer the latter made during his last visit here in November 2017 on a portion of land in this Indian state for the construction of a Mauritius Culture House, possibilities for religious tourism in Benares, which is the oldest city of India.

Other discussions will be held with Indian Defence Minister Mrs Nirmala Seetharaman for the acquision of patrol vessels for the National Coast Guard and the building of a Headquarter for the NCG at Fort Williams and discussions with Narendra Modi on the Chagos files where the Indian Prime Minister will be asked to make his submissions to the International Court of Justice on the issue. The Minister Mentor will be back on Monday 26th February.

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi inaugurated the UP Investors Summit in Lucknow on Wednesday 21st February. The two-day event was aimed at showcasing investment opportunities and potential across various sectors in the state.

At the very opening of the meeting, Reliance Industries’ Mukesh Ambani pledged to invest Rs 20,000 crores in the state, “Jio will be present in every single village in UP by the end of 2018,” said Ambani. The Indian Prime Minister arrived at the Summit earlier and was welcomed by the Governor of Uttar Pradesh, Ram Naik, the Union Home Minister, Rajnath Singh, and the Chief Minister, Yogi Adityanath.

“This is the first such event by Uttar Pradesh’s Adityanath government,” the Times of India reported in its Wednesday edition. Seven nations – Finland, Netherlands, Japan, Czech Republic, Thailand, Slovakia and Mauritius have been identified as country partners for the event. Several Memorandums of Understandings (MoUs) were expected to be signed during the summit. 

On Tuesday evening, the Chief Minister, Yogi Adityanath, hosted a string of national and international delegates for dinner and urged them to invest in his state. “Uttar Pradesh is a state of possibilities. Invest here. The government is ready to provide all opportunities to you,” Yogi Adityanath said.

Other guests at the dinner included Mauritius Minister Mentor, former President and Prime Minister Sir Anerood Jugnauth and his wife Sarojini Jugnauth, and Mahindra group chairman Anand Mahindra.

The two-day event was attended by 5,000 delegates with over 100 speakers. The event saw heads of states and governments, ministers, leaders from the corporate world, senior policy makers, heads of international institutions and academics from around the world coming together to further the cause of economic development in the Indian state.

The Opening Session was attended by Sir Anerood Jugnauth and Lady Sarojini when Sri Narendra Modi took a minute to chat with them on his entry at the summit. Indian officials included Home Minister Rajnath Singh, Union Minister Nitin Gadkari, UP Deputy Chief Ministers Keshav Prasad Maurya and Dinesh Sharma, Minister of Commerce and Industry Suresh Prabhu and Minister of Textiles and Information & Broadcasting Smriti Irani, among others.

Top industrialists, including Mukesh Ambani, Gautam Adani, Subhash Chandra, N Chandrashekharan, Anand Mahindra, KM Birla, Shobana Kamineni, addressed the opening session in presence of Prime Minister Modi and global delegates where they pledged massive investments in Uttar Pradesh.

The Adani Group, Mukesh Ambani, Aditya Birla, Mahindra and Mahindra all vowed to invest millions of rupees in new projects in the largest Indian state of Uttar Pradesh. On the very first day of the summit, Yogi Aditiya indicated that MoUs totaling the sum of 4.28 trillion Indian Rupees were signed with local and international investors.