By Baljit Balli / Ramandeep Bajwa
Chandigarh, August 26, 2019: Apart from attracting investment from leading industrialist and big corporate houses ,the main focus of the upcoming Progressive Punjab Investment Summit (PPIS) 2019, to be held in Mohali on December 5-6, will be Small and Medium Scale Enterprises (SMSE) and local cottage industries in Punjab.
Rajat Agarwal, CEO, Invest Punjab, while talking to Babushahi.com, said, “Though big industrialists, corporate houses and prominent businessmen are most welcome and invitations have been sent to all to participate in the summit but special attention will be paid to SMSEs and local cottage industries, which are one of the major contributors to the state’s economy after agriculture.”
“We want these small and medium scale enterprises and industries to grow, generate more employment and adopt modern technology and digitization so that they can contribute even more in the economic growth of the state. How to go about these aspects will one of the main highlights of the summit,” Agarwal added.
The Capt Amarinder-led government has always stressed that Punjab needs big and high-tech industries and for that prominent businessmen and industrialist from all over the world have been invited to the summit but the government has stressed that it is equally important to support SMSEs and cottage industries and connect them to the international market. The state government has already taken steps to take care the interests of SMSEs but want to take it further
now .
The government is also looking at how trade links between these enterprises and the global market can be made stronger so that the products manufactured by them can be sold all over the world.
During the summit, products manufactured in Punjab and used by reputed international companies will be given prominence in the exhibition.
For example, stainless steel manufactured in Punjab is used by Tesla to manufacture its electric cars. Towels manufactured by Trident Group were already being sold in Wal-Mart stores all over the world. Now, Trident has tied up with Amazon to sell its products on the global market. Likewise other products manufactured here and sold overseas will also be part of the exhibition. This will encourage businessmen of the state.
File Photo
The government is thinking of ways to help businessmen in producing goods and marketing them.
In furtherance of this, new and old units are being charged electricity at Rs 5 per unit and nod at district level to set up Industrial units with investment of up to Rs 10 crore has already been implemented.
Leading entrepreneurs, professionals and dignitaries would be invited for the inaugural address and around 3,000 delegate are likely to participate.
Representative from the following industries are expected to participate in the summit: Agro and food processing, information technology & IT enabled services, industry 4.0, new mobility solution, textile and garmenting, startups, healthcare, life sciences & wellness, and tourism.
The summit will not only showcase Punjab to the entrepreneurs, both Indian and foreign, so that they can invest here, but it will present a golden opportunity for businessmen running SMSE and cottage industries to interact with them to exchange ideas and even forge partnerships.
During the summit there would be 10 sessions, besides government to business as well as business to business meetings and exhibitions displaying the products of local industry.
Capt Amarinder Singh will be actively participating in the summit and will hold face to face meetings with delegates.
Apart from preparations being made in the state, and in order to invite delegates from other parts of India and abroad, Capt Amarinder will visit Bengaluru from August 28 to 29 where he will meet head honchos of prominent business houses, including the Paytm and Flipkart chiefs. On September 5, the CM will be in Delhi to meet envoys of different countries.
Discussions will be held with start-ups in the state to understand the issues they are facing.
Non Resident Indians (NRI) will also be invited to the summit so that they can contribute to the progress of the state.
On being asked about the industrial scenario in the state, Agarwal said the overall slowdown in the economy has affected industries in Punjab too.
“However, what is encouraging is that industrial activity has picked up and in the last two years electricity consumption by industry has increased by 22 per cent. In Mandi Gobindgarh, industries showed 54 per cent increase in power consumption,” he said.
New projects have been set up in the fields of food processing, chemicals and petroleum, education, new and renewable energy while there are around a dozen companies which have invested many thousands of crores in increasing their production capacity.More than Rs 50 thousand crores have been invested in these projects so far.