After Gujarat, Maharashtra now Bihar to woo Chinese investors

Ahead of Chinese President Xi Jinping's visit to India, Bihar has joined Gujarat and Maharashtra in wooing the Chinese investors by offering wide ranging sops to them.

Bihar along with Gujarat and Maharashtra pitched for Beijing's outbound investment (ODI) at the 18th China International Fair for Investment and Trade (CIFIT), the only Chinese government international investment promotion event aimed at facilitating bilateral investments.

The three states projected themselves as promising investment destinations at the "Investment Opportunities in India" held by Indian Consulate in Guangzhou yesterday on the sidelines of the CIFIT event in Xiamen city which would conclude tomorrow.

In the trade fair, an India pavilion has been set up to highlight information about opportunities for investment and FDI policies of India, Consul General K Nagraj Naidu told PTI here. In the event, the Bihar delegation, led by Minister for Industries Bhim Singh, joined Gujarat and Maharashtra who have been scouting for the Chinese investments for long.

Officials of Maharashtra Industrial Development Corporation (MIDC), Adani SEZ of Gujarat and Khed SEZ of Pune also took part in the event, he said.

The event was held amid hectic talks between Indian and Chinese officials to finalise Chinese investments in the proposed Industrial Parks to be announced by Xi during his visit to India. According to officials here Xi would visit India for three days starting from September 17. 

He would begin his visit from Gujarat, the home state of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, where he would announce one Industrial Park with few billion dollar investments. Officials say that the first Chinese industrial park may come up at the Tebian Electric Apparatus Stock Co Ltd (TBEA) plant at Karjan town in Vadodara in Gujarat.

TBEA, maker of high-voltage transformers, has acquired land long ago and much of it could be used by the other Chinese companies in order to save them from the process of land acquisition, which in turn would give them a head start.

Most of the Chinese investments are made in Gujarat based on sustained investment promotion campaigns when Prime Minister Narendra Modi was the Chief Minister of the state.

The other Park is expected to come up at Chakan in Maharashtra where the Chinese commercial vehicle maker Beiqi Foton has already made big investments.

Indian officials say currently China's investments in India are less than USD 500 million and expected to touch few billion if Xi announces the Industrial Parks.

Besides India, several countries are wooing China as its ODI has been growing at a very swift pace reaching a record high of USD 87.8 billion in 2012. ODI for the first six months of 2013 was in excess of USD 30 billion.
Chinese investors are keen to diversify and have expressed interest in investing in India.

The Indian Consulate in Guangzhou has participated in the last three sessions of CIFIT through a custom-built India Pavilion.

"We have also organised investment seminars and B2B meetings between Chinese investors and representatives of Indian state governments, and Indian SEZs," Nagraj said.