Looking to lure US firms, Khattar dials CEOs, biz honchos

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, May 20

Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar and United States India Business Council (USIBC) president Nisha Biswal jointly chaired a video conference attended by CEOs and top management of over 60 prominent American companies late Tuesday evening.

A number of opportunities, including promotion of home healthcare, transition of automobile component manufacturing to aerospace machinery manufacturing and use of transformational technology such as 5G, Edge, artificial intelligence and blockchains in governance and industrial manufacturing were identified in the video conference. The meeting was attended by CEOs and top management of prominent companies including Boeing, Coca Cola, Baxter, Walmart, Stryker, Master Card, Troy Corporation, GE and Intel.

Addressing the honchos, the CM said PM Narendra Modi had last week announced an economic stimulus equal to 10 per cent of the country’s GDP. He laid out four aspects of the package — land, labour, liquidity and laws – and said Haryana shall be the frontrunner among Indian states on each of these aspects in the coming days, weeks and months.

Khattar tasked Haryana State Industrial and Infrastructure Development Corporation (HSIIDC) Managing Director Anurag Aggarwal with regularly following up with individual companies through the Virtual Web Desk already set up. He also suggested that Biswal depute someone from the business council for the same.

Biswal said Haryana was best suited for setting up of manufacturing bases of US companies wishing to diversify their production across the globe in the post-Covid world.