Jammu & Kashmir administration restarts work on Global Investors Summit

SRINAGAR: Jammu & Kashmir administration has restarted preparations for a business summit aimed at drawing investments into the Union Territory, after the previous schedule for the meet was abandoned because of the viral pandemic.

The Global Investors Summit is likely to be held early next year, a senior official told ET. The summit had initially been planned for April this year.

In run up to the summit, the administration had conducted several road shows in different parts of the country, including Mumbai, Chennai, Kolkata and Bengaluru, and signed memoranda of understanding with at least 240 organisations across the country.

“We have again started the process of contacting these companies who had shown interest early this year. Till now 70 of them have shown good interest,” said MK Dwivedi, commissioner secretary to J&K administration, who also holds the charge of managing director of J&K Trade Promotion Organisation. JKTPO is the nodal government agency for organizing the summit.

Dwivedi, who is also the managing director of J&K Trade Promotion Organisation (JKTPO), said some companies have shown interest in investing in the region.

The UT administration is offering 6,000 acres of land across J&K for investors to setup food processing units, medical complexes, food parks, information technology parks, and other business outlets.

“We are hopeful that the summit could be organised in early 2021. We are now shortlisting the companies,” said Dwivedi.

Even as work to woo investors gets under way in the UT, local businesses continue to suffer. The majority of businesses in the region haven’t been functioning well because of uncertainty after J&K’s special status was revoked on August 5, 2019 and the erstwhile state was designated as UT.

The region’s economy, which had taken a big hit because of a lockdown and the months-long government-imposed communication blockade, had begun to show signs of recovery when the pandemic struck.

A report by civil rights group The Forum of Human Rights, states that the UT has lost around Rs 40,000 crore since the abrogation of special status in August last year.