The chief minister of India’s Maharashtra state, Devendra Fadnavis, who was in the US on an investment promotion tour earlier this year, made a stopover in New York to court US investors in the Indian state whose economic growth, as he put it, is “infrastructure-driven.” Fadnavis was the chief guest at an event called “Mumbai Meets Manhattan,” jointly organized by the Indian consulate general in New York and Friends of Maharashtra.
Sandeep Chakravorty, the New York-based Indian consul general, spoke of the “big opportunities” available to investors in the state of Maharashtra.
The Mumbai-meets-Manhattan event highlighted the attractions and financial strength of Maharashtra state and, particularly, its capital, Mumbai, showcasing its similarities with the world’s financial hub Manhattan. Some 500 delegates attended the event.
Fadnavis spoke about the key role played by Maharashtra in the growth story of what he called the “new India.” Infrastructure development, he emphasized, is “written big” in the investment plans of his state, the chief minister said.
Fadnavis, who belongs to the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) party, which forms the Indian central government in New Delhi, listed the positive developments in his state, underlining his government’s flagship project, Jalyukt Shivar, which provided water to 11,427 drought-affected villages, and said his state’s water conservation projects had also contributed to improving agriculture in the state’s rural area.
The chief minister also spoke of the investments being made in the state’s infrastructure development. Officials in Fadnavis’ entourage told Asia Cargo Newsthat “hundreds of billions” of dollars were earmarked for infrastructure projects, including a brand new airport, seaport, etc. Indeed, a metro rail project stretching some 250 km across Mumbai is already underway. Metro projects in neighbouring cities Nagpur and Pune are also moving ahead. Fadnavis said that a wide range of projects, including coastal roads, water transport, the Mumbai Trans Harbour Link, etc., would greatly improve connectivity and distribution of goods, besides providing a strong economic stimulus across Mumbai and Maharashtra.
Some US companies spoke of interest in India’s infrastructure projects but said they would consider all the projects carefully. Indeed, some Indian businesspeople at the event told Asia Cargo News, on the condition of anonymity, that some of the projects were “quite interesting,” but that they would study the projects’ viability before making an investment decision. One Indian businessman, familiar with Mumbai’s – and, indeed, India’s – first monorail project, pointed out that the Malaysian engineering group Scomi had collaborated with Mumbai-based engineering company Larsen & Toubro on the monorail service that opened in 2014 in the city’s Wadala-Chembur suburbs.
Fadnavis revealed that he was grooming Mumbai to become a hub for the financial technology – fintech – industry, a promising sector for foreign direct investment (FDI). He said Mumbai’s attributes as India’s financial capital had not been leveraged in the past, and made a pitch for fintech as a promising investment sector.
Apparently sending a clear signal to investors and companies around the world, Fadnavis emphasized that “India is changing … Maharashtra is changing.” Maharashtra, he claimed, attracted the highest FDI in India, underscoring its competitiveness “as any other place in the world in terms of ease of doing business” and adding “we are the best place to invest.” The World Bank’s ease of doing business rankings showed that India had improved its ranking by 30 notches and, for the first time, is now among the world’s top 100 countries.
The chief minister recalled that Prime Minister Narendra Modi said at the Magnetic Maharashtra Global Investors’ Summit in Mumbai in February 2018 that Maharashtra will be the first state in India to have a trillion dollar economy by the year 2025, as India itself moves towards becoming a US$5 trillion economy.
Part of his government’s strategy of reaching the trillion dollar economy goal by 2025, Fadnavis reiterated, lay in pursuing infrastructure-led growth. Indeed, as he said, 51% of the infrastructure projects in the country are in Maharashtra, attracting unprecedented infrastructure investments.
“Infrastructure-led growth is the basic idea. Our thrust is presently in the services sector,” he said.
“We have been focusing on building infrastructure. That strategy has also paid off. Infrastructure-led development has also opened up lots of opportunities for international people to come,” Fadnavis noted.
He added that Mumbai is changing quickly due to its huge infrastructure projects while maintaining its independent identity.
An interesting feature of his New York visit was his meeting with Bloomberg CEO and former New York mayor Michael Bloomberg, when both discussed expansion of the road-safety initiative for which an MoU was signed in February 2015. Fadnavis spoke of “substantial progress” made with the initiative resulting in a decline in the number of deaths in road accidents. He said that Bloomberg had shown interest in working jointly with fintech startup companies during the discussions.
Even though the chief minister’s visit to the US was intended to court American companies for investments in Maharashtra, delegates at the event maintained that Fadnavis’ message was “universal in character” and that companies in Europe and Asia are also “most welcome” to get involved in infrastructure projects.
Developing infrastructure projects is aimed at facilitating shipping as both the state and central governments are aggressively pursuing the goal of increasing the country’s foreign trade. While the country is keen to push its exports, imports will also, invariably grow along with the economic growth, as many US analysts say are predicting.
By Manik Mehta
Global Correspondent | New York
