CM Naveen Patnaik-led delegation hard sells Odisha as investment destination in Tokyo, Japan for third day

Bhubaneswar (Odisha) [India], April 7 : In a continuing effort to be the country's leading investment destination, a high-level delegation led by Odisha Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik, continued its foray into hard selling Odisha to a plethora of business delegations in Tokyo, Japan for the third day.

Taking the momentum forward on the early gains made on the last few days in Tokyo, the delegation continued with its series of one-on-one meetings. The delegation included the Minister of Industries, MSME, and Energy, the Chief Secretary to the Government of Odisha, the Principal Secretary, Industries Department, Principal Secretary, E&IT Department, the Secretary to the CM, Secretary, Sports and Youth Services, and Managing Director, IPICO, met today stalwarts from the field of IT & ITES, Skilling and logistics and shipping lines. The marquee names included Fuji Soft, NYK Lines, NITKAL and Sumitomo Group.

According to an official release, in line with the huge potential that the state offers in the field of IT and ITeS, the Fuji Soft Group has proposed to open a "Centre of Excellence" in the state capital of Bhubaneswar. Buoyed by the steady supply of software engineers and skilled workforce in the above sector, Bhubaneswar has been a happy hunting ground for all the marquee labels who are already present in the state. With Fuji Soft proposing to open the proposed CoE, it will add the required fillip to the already burgeoning field.

Keeping in focus the skill development initiatives of the state, NITKAL (Nihon-UTKAL) has tied up with OUTR (Odisha University of Technology & Research) to set up a dedicated skill development centre in the state to cater to the huge demand for trained workforce in Japan. NITKAL (Nihon-UTKAL) is also continuing its dialogue with IIIT for establishing a dedicated Japan-centric centre for skill development in the relevant field.

Logistics and storage for the new sunrise sector of Green Hydrogen and Green Ammonia continue to attract a large amount of traction. Keeping in line with these modern initiatives, 2 of the stalwarts in its field, met the high-level delegation led by the Chief Minister.

First off, the block NYK Lines (Nippon Yusen Kabushiki Kaisha) evinced keen interest in setting up dedicated shipping lines, starting from the port-of-call Paradeep/Gopalpur/Dhamra to transport out the Green Ammonia to the countries which are committed to the greening of the

said sector, especially south-east Asia right up to Japan. They were briefed by the high-level delegation about our existing port infrastructure and future development prospects.

Sumitomo Corporation a global fortune 500 company met the delegation and evinced interest for creating tankage and storage facilities for the green hydrogen and green ammonia sector. They are zeroing in at Gopalpur, which, with its, SEZ located just next door, happens to be an ideal location for the same.

The Chief Minister instructed all the officials to create a roadmap for all these investments in the sunrise sector and create timelines to achieve a quick turnaround for all the proposals received.

According to the official release, the visit of the Chief Minister to Japan continues to buttress the commitment of the state government to promote Odisha as a favourable investment destination and strengthen the emerging economic and cultural ties with Japan. The group would proceed to Kyoto today, to continue with the initiatives and initiate further bulwark in the field of sports and tourism.