Karnataka to appoint ambassadors of industry abroad

The Karnataka Government is planning to appoint “ambassadors of industry” by choosing leading Non Resident Indians (NRIs) in Middle East, US, Europe and East Asian countries to help attract investment to Karnataka.

Speaking to reporters, Karnataka’s Minister for Industries Katta Subramanya Naidu said there was a lot of interest among businessmen and entrepreneurs all over the world to invest in Bangalore and different parts of Karnataka. “The Government will identify ambassadors from among the NRIs in these geographic regions to promote investment in Karnataka”, he said.

Naidu, who was part of a high-level delegation led by Deputy Chief Minister B S Yediyurappa that toured the US for ten days recently, said the issue of appointing the ambassadors of industry will be finalized soon after holding discussions with Chief Minister H D Kumaraswamy. “We will not be paying any salaries or perks to these ambassadors”, Naidu said in response to a question.

Several multinational companies based in the US had evinced keen interest to invest in the booming Information Technology (IT) sector in Bangalore. The Government had received inquiries even in areas like IT-enabled services, hardware industry and medical tourism, he said. “Proposals worth Rs 20 billion will be finalized soon”, Naidu said.

Starting next week, several US business delegations would be visiting Bangalore to interact with the Government and work out the investment modalities. “Our delegation visited Intel headquarters at Santa Clara. Intel will be investing Rs 50 billion on software parks in Bangalore and Mysore in the next two years”, he said.

Several prominent medical doctors of Karnataka origin in the US had shown interest to invest in medical facilities in Bangalore.

According to Naidu, Governor of California Arnold Schwarzenegger will be visiting Bangalore during February next year along with a business delegation. Officials representing the California Governor had conveyed Schwarnzenegger’s interest in visiting Bangalore. “We immediately extended an invitation to him. He is planning to visit us in February next year”.

However, Schwarzenegger’s visit to Bangalore will be preceded by the visits of Governor of New York State George Pataki and Governor of Maryland Robert Ehrlich this year, Naidu added.