Ahmedabad now a Japanese hub
Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, who along with his wife, arrived in Ahmedabad on Wednesday afternoon, must be feeling at home with Japanese flags, larger than life cut outs of his images and welcome messages, scribbled in Japanese, in the world’s first heritage city.
The cut outs of Modi and Abe can be seen almost at every traffic intersection, with messages describing Gujarat as the land of Asiatic lions. Ahead of the ground breaking ceremony of the High Speed Rail, it is being hailed on hoardings as a new era of rail travel.
The city has a festive look with multi coloured lights decorating the river front. A large number of people, including burka clad women, began
It is in this stately 20th century mansion turned hotel that Modi hosted Abe for dinner. As many as 15,000 policemen are on duty in and around Ahmedabad during the two day annual summit.
The Japanese couple visited Sabarmati ashram, the living quarters of Mahatma Gandhi, in the afternoon and later joined Modi in the 16th century Siddi Sayyaid ki Jaali mosque which is synonymous with the ethos of Ahmedabad. Crowd management at Siddi Sayyaid ki Jalli, known for intricate lattice artwork, became a challenge for the police and SPG when Modi decided to walk close to the crowd.
Behind showcasing of crafts, culture and cuisine, the choice of Gujarat for hosting Abe has a lot of significance. It was here in 2014 that Modi had hosted the Chinese President Xi Jinping.
There is a lot that India and Japan are willing to offer to each other. For almost seven years, Modi has wanted to realise his dream of constructing a Buddhist temple in Gujarat and is keen that Japan should also play a role in constructing the tallest statue of Lord Buddha in sitting posture in Dev ni Mori near Shamla ki in north east Gujarat.
Modi wants his home State to progress at the speed of the Shinkansen by not just having a bullet train between Ahmedabad and Mumbai but also attracting Japanese investments in the State. Gujarat goes to polls this year and the government is keenly pursuing more investments. At present, there are 80 Japanese companies in Gujarat and 14 more have shown interest to invest in Gujarat. The Gujarat Industrial Development Corporation has set up a Japanese desk recently to reply to queries from Japanese investors within 24 hours.
Gujarat Chief Minister Mr Vijay Rupani had told this correspondent last month that his government is keen to scale up the presence of Japanese companies in Gujarat almost on the same level as Bangkok, Hong Kong and Singapore. He said, “Japan has consistently been a partner country in Vibrant Gujarat since 2003. Of the 80 Japanese companies in Gujarat, 25 are in Ahmedabad.” This number is expected to grow to 100.
Sources in the Gujarat government told this correspondent that the current Japanese investment in the state is close to one billion USD and is projected to reach thee billion USD by 2020.