PM Modi to inaugurate Vibrant Gujarat Summit today

Prime Minister Narendra Modi to inaugurate today the eighth edition of Vibrant Gujarat Global Summit (VGGS), that will be attended by Fortune 500 CEOs, including John Chambers of Cisco and Boeing's Bertrand Marc Allen.

Gujarat is targeting to sign a record 21,190 MoUs with investment commitment of close to Rs 30 lakh crore during the three-day Summit that will see more than 6,000 delegates participating in eight seminars and business-to-business and business-to-government meetings.

Modi, who arrived here for pre-Summit events, will host a lunch for heads of foreign delegations tomorrow afternoon ahead of the inauguration.

Prominent among the foreign dignitaries is Russian Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Olegovich Rogozin, President of Kenya Uhuru Kenyatta and Prime Minister of Portugal Antnio Costa.

Touted as the biggest of the biennial business summits, which was conceived and launched by Modi when he was Gujarat chief minister in 2003, VGGS will be attended by top Union Ministers, including Finance Minister Arun Jaitley and Power Minister Piyush Goyal.

After the inauguration, Modi will chair the CEO Roundtable on Transforming India. Besides Chambers and Allen, global CEOs listed to attend the meeting include Suzuki Motor Corp's Toshihiro Suzuki, Jean-Bernard Levy, CEO of French electricity giant EDF, Yusuffali MA of Lulu Group and Sistema's Vladimir Evtushenkov.

From India, Reliance Industries chairman Mukesh Ambani, Adani Group chairman Gautam Adani, Kumar Mangalam Birla of Aditya Birla Group, Essar head Shashi Ruia, Bharti Enterprises Chairman Sunil Bharti Mittal, SBI Chairperson Arundhati Bhattacharya, Reliance ADA Group Chairman Anil Ambani, Vishal Sikka of Infosys, Y C Deveshwar of ITC and Kotak Mahindra Group's Uday S Kotak will be part of the CEOs Roundtable as well as the inauguration ceremony.

The discussions during the roundtable would largely revolve around global as well as Indian investment climate and business opportunities.

Theamed 'Sustainable Economic and Social Development', the Summit - to be held between January 10 and 13 - will also bring together heads of States and Governments, Ministers, senior policy makers, heads of international institutions and academia.

Jaitley will address a special session on January 11 on GST to detail rollout plans for the indirect tax regime.

The three-day summit is expected to culminate into a slew of partnerships, MoUs and investment commitments in the state of Gujarat.

The event comes at a time when the country is gearing up to implement its biggest tax reform GST, and has also demonetised high value currency notes to deal with blackmoney.

Besides sessions on ease of doing business, biotechnology, GST, aerospace and defense, domestic manufacturing, smart cities and skilling, the Summit would also host B2B meetings and country sessions.

The partner countries for the Summit include the US, the UK, Sweden, Japan, France, the UAE and Singapore. The summit will see participation from over 110 countries.