VIJAYAWADA: Industries and Commerce Minister Mekapati Goutham Reddy has welcomed the investors from Australia to open shops in Andhra Pradesh.
The minister felt that collaboration between Australia and AP will yield better results in the areas like mining, electric vehicles and battery technology, infrastructure and financing, textiles and apparel.
Participating in the virtual summit ‘Western Australia Turning to India : Investing in its future’ on Thursday, the minister said that the government was focusing on making AP one of the major hubs for electric mobility in the country.
Vijayawada, Visakhapatnam, Amaravati and Tirupati were declared as Model EM Cities and the government was planning to set up hundreds of DC public charging stations in each Model EM Cities.
The government is also planning to turn all the APSRTC buses into electric buses by 2029 and all government vehicles by 2024, Mekapati said.
“Australia has plenty of Lithium resources and AP aspires to go fossil-free, which creates a huge demand for companies manufacturing batteries in the state. We urge Australian representatives to consider setting up Li-ion battery manufacturing units in Andhra Pradesh,’’ he said.
Australian High Commissioner to India Barry and others attended the session.