Mamata to visit Germany from Vatican

Kolkata: Come September, chief minister Mamata Banerjee will fly straight to Germany from the Vatican, where she will attend the canonization ceremony of Mother Teresa, to scout for investment in automobile and manufacturing sectors.
Bavaria, home to automobile giants like BMW and Audi, will be the CM's primary spot of visit in Germany, said state finance and industries minister Amit Mitra at Nabanna on Friday.Two leading German chambers of commerce - BVMW and the Association of German Chamber of Commerce and Industry (IHK) - have invited the chief minister to Germany. Apart from Munich, the capital of Bavaria, Mamata is likely to visit some other German cities as well. A business delegation will accompany the chief minister, just like they did during her visit to the UK and Singapore.
BVMW, which mainly represents mid-sized companies in Germany, has 300 branches and organises 2,000 seminars every year. "More than 2.70 lakh companies are members of BVMW and it employs 9 million workers," Mitra said. IHK is the apex chamber with 3 million entrepreneurs as its members. "All German companies are required to join the chamber as per law."
According to Mitra, BVMW, in its invitation letter, has praised Mamata by saying that Bengal under her leadership has taken tremendous strides to catalyse the growth. During the felicitation ceremony organized by all the chambers in June this year, Mamata had expressed her wish to visit some European countries in search of investments before or after her Vatican trip in September. She had also evinced special interest on manufacturing and automobile sectors.
If materialized, the Germany trip will be Mamata's fifth overseas trip and the first business trip in her second stint as the chief minister. Prior to this, she had visited Singapore in 2014, Bangladesh and the UK in 2015.
Meanwhile, Mitra said that Kotra, which is the trade and investment promotion agency of South Korea, has agreed to open its first eastern India office in Kolkata. Kotra's chief director-general Dong Seek Choi discussed the matter with Mitra on Friday. This will help in bringing in fresh investments from South Korea, the finance and industries minister added.