Look East business summit kick-starts

SHILLONG, FEB 26: Meghalaya chief minister Mukul Sangma inaugurated the three- day Look East Business Show-2015 “Strengthening South East Asian Ties with NE India” at Soso Tham auditorium on Thursday.

Delegates from South East Asian countries like Cambodia, Vietnam, Bangladesh and members from various business houses from the north east are also taking part in the summit.

Cambodian secretary of state & vice-minister tourism Tith Chantha and deputy high commissioner of Singapore to India Dr. Edmund Chia are among the high-level delegates from South East Asia attending the business summit organized jointly by North Eastern Council, Union Ministry of DoNER, Department of Commerce & Industries, Meghalaya and the Indian Chamber of Commerce.

Highlighting on the “natural connect” between the people of Northeast and South East Asia, Sangma called upon the people of both the regions to leverage upon the common potential and look for common business interests that can bring the people of these regions together. He stated that the strength of northeast lies in its huge forest cover and stressed the need to link sustainable ecology with sustainable livelihood.

Terming Meghalaya was one of the fastest growing states in India in terms of GDP, Sangma in his inaugural address said that Meghalaya is the place where things should start as far as North East is concerned, where one can invest on tourism, health and other activities.  “Our investment strategy for next year is to link these investments with thousands of families across the state who will be our partners and that is going to open up lots of entrepreneurship activities”, he said.

“If we are looking at potential partnership across the countries of South East Asia, our level of competition should be at global scale and not at local scale, therefore we want to create multi-level skilled workforce that can enable us to create conducive environment to attract investment for furthering our business ventures” Sangma said adding that the whole concept of “Look East” can ultimately be a game-changer only if the people of the state are willing to participate.

Sangma stressed on the need to create business opportunities for the citizens, need to understand fiscal management strategy, the need to create skilled workforce in order to achieve the goal of bridging the business cooperation across South East Asian countries through the north east.

Sangma told the visiting dignitaries that the state would be looking forward to having sector-specific engagements with them in an aggressive manner adding that “as we host this business summit we look forward for the opportunities of Look East Policy”

Addressing the gathering, North Eastern Council member MP Bezbaruah suggested to the participating delegates and ICC to identify  items that people from NE can import, identify what tourists from their countries are looking for that NE can provide, suggest possibilities of joint collaboration on health care, coordinate tour operators and identify nodal institutions for people to people contact.

Cambodian secretary of state Tith Chantha, in his address, highlighted on the long history of friendship and cooperation between NE India and South East Asia and suggested on the need to improve connectivity to promote business cooperation between the two regions.

Deputy High Commissioner of Singapore to India, Dr. Edward Chia said that they had been encouraged to take a closer look at North East as the new Government of India had shown strong political will to develop the region.

During the inaugural session, NEC secretary Ameising Luikham gave the keynote address, while Meghalaya chief secretary PBO Warjri deliberated on the theme of the business meet and ICC Director General Dr. Rajeev Singh gave the welcome address.- By Our Reporter