Senior representatives of 10 countries have already agreed to partner with West Bengal at the upcoming Bengal Global Business Summit (BGBS) that is scheduled on April 20-21. This was decided at an interactive meeting on BGBS, organised by the state government at Nabanna, with ambassadors, high commissioners, consul generals, honorary consuls and bilateral chambers.

According to sources many countries have expressed their interest to partner at BGBS, of which 10 countries, including England, Russia, Germany, Kenya, Malaysia and Netherlands have shown initial interest. Ministers and MPs from Poland, Kenya and many other countries have also affirmed their attendance this year. This year, the focus sectors are infrastructure, service sector, including education and health, tourism, industries, MSMEs, agri and allied sector, international trade, IT&ITES, mining and oil and gas.

The interactive meeting was addressed by state chief secretary HK Dwivedi, Rajiva Sinha, chairman, WBIDC delivered the introductory remarks while Mr Amit Mitra, principal chief advisor to the chief minister and the finance department delivered the keynote address virtually. A presentation was made on BGBS, including the structure of the summit and offerings for partner countries.

The interactive session was attended by nearly 30 countries. Ambassadors/ high commissioners of Italy, Netherlands, Paraguay, Kenya, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Malaysia, Morocco and Slovenia joined the session virtually. Senior embassy officials from Luxembourg, Poland, Singapore, Switzerland, Japan, Finland, France and the Republic of Korea also attended the virtual interactive session today. Ambassador of Argentina, consul generals from USA, UK, Japan, Italy, Australia, Bhutan, Nepal and Thailand in West Bengal and honorary consuls from several other countries attended the meeting.

The meeting with diplomats was followed by presentations by senior departmental secretaries to apprise them about respective sectoral developments. The interaction with diplomats was organised by WBIDC and Partner Chamber, FICCI.