Ahmedabad, 7 September 2014

Chinese President Xi Jinping’s visit to Gujarat on 17th September has been announced by state Chief Minister Anandiben Patel on Saturday during her speech at a public meeting in Khambhalia town in Jamnagar district.

Anandiben also shared the details that Prime Minister Narendra Modi will come to Gujarat to honor Chinese President on this day which is also Shri Modi’s birthday.

She also said that MoU will be signed during this visit.

As per the details available at this time, one of the agreements to be signed during Chinese President Xi Jiping’s visit will be about a 10 sq km industrial park near Ahmedabad in Gujarat which would attract investments in excess of $1 billion. This park would have main focus on power transmission and generation equipment manufacturing.

Gujarat has already some presence of Chinese companies in this sector including Baoding Tianwei Baobian Electric Co.(TWBB), China Light and Power Company, Tebian Electric Apparatus Stock Co. Ltd(TBEA), Highly etc. Gujarat’s Adani group has a unit in China for power sector machine manufacturing.

In last couple of months a group of around 15 companies from China involved in manufacturing of electric vehicle visited Sanand near Ahmedabad to plan an investment of about $ 100 million here in next two years in industrial park. A delegation had seven electric vehicle manufacturing companies that are into manufacturing of electrical cars, two-wheelers, three- wheelers and four-wheelers for road cleaning, city sanitary car, ambulance car, police cars etc.The companies in the delegation were Green Field Motor Co Ltd, VOCH Group Ltd, YueHua Control Group Ltd, Zhuji Yongcheng Auto Co Ltd, Wenzhou Jinpi Machinery Manufacturing Co Ltd and JBON Control Industry.

Earlier in June, a delegation of around four companies had visited Gujarat and had also held a meeting with state government representatives. The companies visited several factories to explore joint venture opportunities with Gujarat companies. Two companies from Gujarat who are already working with Zhejiang companies shared their experiences. Another delegation is expected to visit this month.

The park in Gujarat, MoU for which is going to be signed during President Xi Jinping’s visit would be a smart city with banks, hotels, schools, recreational centres and other facilities.

China will also sign MoU for another Industrial park in Pune which would have size of 6 sq km and attract $ 5 billion investment mainly in automobile manufacturing sector in phases over the next decade. First phase of Pune park which would require investments in excess of $ 500 million will be completed in three years.

The India-China bilateral trade totaled 65.47 billion last year.However, direct investments by Chinese firms amounted to just $1.1 billion(mostly in Gujarat) compared to around $4 billion invested by Indian companies in China.. China has made investments to the tune of $750 billion across the world. China claims, excessive security (screening) and tall barriers has killed efforts to increase Chinese investments in India so far.

China hopes to make a big investment in one of the Industrial Parks to start with. In June, India and China had signed MoU which outlined the work to set up four industrial parks to rebalance the ballooning trade-deficit averaging over $35 billion a year. During Vice President of India’s visit to China in June this year, this MoU was signed between Ministry of Commerce and Industry and the Ministry of Commerce of the People’s Republic of China to further expand the scope of bilateral trade and investment cooperation, and promote cooperation between Chinese and Indian enterprises including the development of industrial parks in India so as to provide a platform for cluster type development of the enterprises of both countries.

In June this year, Chinese Ambassador to India Wei Wei visited Gujarat and called on Gujarat Chief Minister. Wei Wei in his speech at opening function of Chinese firm TBEA’s plant in Karjan in central Gujarat had said: Both China and India have big population and to develop manufacturing industry is the most effective solution for employment. India intends to scale up its manufacturing output’s contribution to GDP from existing 16% to 25% by year 2022. China has intention and full capbility to help India to expand its manufacturing industries to grow, to improve the level of manufacturing goods, and to make India a manufacturing house like China.

Wei Wei had further said in his speech: “To improve manufacturing, Chinese type industrial parks need to be established, which is good for Chinese enterprises and investors who are now familiar with India’s circumstances.”

He further said, “China’s development was also generated by foreign investment in Chinese industrial parks. Such parks are also going overseas and there are already many successful cases. For example five large industrial parks are already established in Cambodia, Vietnam, Indonesia and other countries. And the Chinese embassy is finding the perfect location to establish Chinese Industrial park in India. Chinese government and Indian government have signed MoU for the establishment for such Chinese industrial park. and I think Gujarat state is perfect candidate for the same.”

He had said, “we also hope Indian enterprises can attract more and more Chinese business and funding to Gujarat. And at the same time we also encourage more Chinese companies just like TBEA to invest in Gujarat state.”

In reference to opening of TBEA plant, Chinese ambassador he had said, “the investment of TBEA Energy Indian Private Limited at Gujarat state is a successful case not only for Chinese companies to establish their facility in India, but also a successful case to show Chinese company’s capability of going overseas. My presence here is just to release the signal that Chinese government is willing to see investment in Gujarat state in India from 1000s and 100s of such Chinese companies.”

Ahead of Chinese President’s visit to India, a state-run Xinhua news agency in August headlined its report as ‘Modi urges world to manufacture in India,’ highlighting Modi’s call at the Red Fort on 15 August to “come, make in India. Sell anywhere, but manufacture here. We have the skill and the talent.”

Modi also reiterated his pre-poll promise of creating jobs and attracting investment, saying his priority would be “people, private partnership,” the report said.