Few states in US can start biz partnership with Bengal: Mitra
KOLKATA: Amit Mitra, Principal Chief Advisor to Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee indicated that the Bengal government has already taken steps and initiated dialogue for investment with partner countries and states of Lombardy (Italy); North Rhine Westphalia (Germany), Incheon (South Korea) and Upper Silesian (Poland).
While addressing at the concluding day of the 42nd North American Bengali Convention (NABC) at , Last Vegas, USA on Monday, Mitra suggested to HE Melinda Pavek, US Consul General at Kolkata to take up the issue of business partnership with certain US States that share common core competence and goals with Bengal.
Mitra said that during Covid pandemic, when the coinrtry's GDP declined by 7.5 per cent(-), Bengal has increased its GDP by 1.06 per cent(+).
“This has been possible only because of the fact that the Mamata Banerjee led Bengal government followed the demand driven macro-economic policies as followed in USA & UK in contrast to the supply side economic model followed by Government of India,” he said.
The US based industrialists and professionals (many from IITs) present at NABC evinced interest in human capital and skills exchange as well as technology transfer with Bengal in potential areas of development and advancement.
Mitra, during his interactive session highlighted the state' s achievement in the IT sector stating that TCS at Kolkata now employs more than 50,000 employees…one of the highest in the country while Cognizant is now employing more than 22,000 IT sector professionals in Kolkata.
He further informed that Tata-Hitachi has closed its factory in Jamshedpur and moved all its plant to Kharagpur as they are taking more interest in manufacturing mining equipments in connection with the Deocha-Pachami coal block in Birbhum.
More than 5,000 delegates attended the convention which included industry professionals from New York, USA, chemical industry experts from New Jersey, USA and IT professionals from Texas and California, USA as also industry field experts from all over North America —East and West coast and Canada.