Narendra Modi’s interview to a Gujarati channel in Japan(in audio)

Ahmedabad, 27 July 2012

-Gujarat to develop model port city on the lines of Kobe
-Chief Minister, leading business delegation from Gujarat to Japan, starts return journey
-CM meets 2,000 key personnel, including seven ministers, top industrialists and bankers at 66 functions in official visit
-“With this visit to Japan begins a new chapter of mutual trust” ~ Narendra Modi

The high-level business delegation from Gujarat, led by Chief Minister Mr. Narendra Modi, started on return journey from Osaka this afternoon after a very successful four-day tour of Japan on the invitation of Japanese Government.

The delegation is scheduled to land in Ahmedabad International Airport tonight.

In Japan, Mr. Modi met nearly 2,000 top honchos and key personnel of different organizations, including seven ministers, at 65 functions, in groups or over one-to-one meetings, receptions, in five provinces, namely Toyo, Hamamatsu, Aichi-Nagoya, Osaka and Kobe-Hyogo. He had a roundtable meeting with top brass of Mizuho Corporate Bank as he addressed three seminar of JETRO at different locations.

Responding to a grand farewell function at Kobe on the last day of his official visit to Japan today, Mr. Modi observed that this visit would serve as value addition to the cordial relation between Gujarat and Japan and take it to greater heights, opening up new avenues of co-operations in myriad ways. Mr. Modi said he is overwhelmed by the warmth received everywhere.

The function was extended by Kobe-Hyogo Prefecture Governor Mr. Toshizo Ido and Vice-Governor at the Governor House.

Mr. Modi said that Gujarat’s similarities and close relations with Kobe is not limited to disaster management but also in several development projects, in new frontiers. It included setting up a Disaster Management Museum, developing a Model City on the lines of Kobe.

He said Gujarat could do wonders by combining the technology and discipline of Japan on the one hand, and Gujarat’s entrepreneurial skills and work culture in developing DMIC, Asia’s biggest Auto Hub and other projects. Similarly, Japan’s expertise in hardware and Gujarat’s talent in software could also be developed on mutual relations.

Speaking on the occasion, Mr. Ido recalled his visit to Gujarat in 2010. The Kobe-Hyogo Province had also extended its assistance to the quake-hit Kutch in Gujarat and helped build a school and boarding at Bhachau. He assured complete co-operation to Gujarat’s Disaster Management and developing a Model Port on the lines of Kobe. Earlier, in the morning, Mr. Modi took one hour’s ride in the Bay Area on a marine boat to acquaint himself about the working of Kobe port in the Bay Area. The Kobe port is known for rising from the debris within two years of the disastrous earthquake in 1995. The Kobe airport has also been declared as a marine airport.

This assumes special significance as Chief Minister’s dream to develop Dholera SIR (Special Investment Region) as an International Port City, projected to be larger than Shanghai. He proposes to stretch the Delhi-Mumbai Industrial Corridor (DMIC) as ‘Coastal Corridor’, extending it from Ahmedabad to Dholera and Bhavnagar, up to Kalpsar dam-cum-tidal power project.

Mr. Modi finds uncanny similarity between Kobe and Dholera in Gujarat. Both the regions were devastated by the earthquake. Kobe port was established in 812 A.D. Likewise, Dholera is also an ancient port in the Gulf of Cambay (Khambhat), with historical records of trade with Eurasian countries.