The ninth Partnership Summit of the Confederation of Indian Industry will be held in Hyderabad from January 5 to 8 with the theme of 'Networking Business: Linking Nations.'
To be inaugurated by the deputy prime minister, L K Advani, the Partnership Summit 2003, the annual flagship event of the CII, will see over 800 delegates including 250 from 22 countries that include the US, the UK, the UAE, Switzerland, Singapore, China, France, Germany, Malaysia, Oman and Qatar.
The summit will provide a platform for Union cabinet ministers Yashwant Sinha, George Fernandes, Ram Naik, Arun Shourie, Jaswant Singh, Sukhdev Singh Dhindsa and Karnataka chief minister S M Krishna, apart from Jairam Ramesh, the economic affairs secretary of the Congress party, to debate on various issues.
Addressing the media through a video conference from Delhi, Tarun Das, the director-general of CII, said that Hyderabad had been chosen for the Partnership Summit for the second time since it had the hard and soft infrastructure that is required for attracting investments.
"We are working in partnership with the state government to make Andhra Pradesh as the first developed state in the country. While states like Gujarat, Maharashtra and Tamil Nadu have achieved much progress earlier, AP is now trying to cover backlog and catch up. We believe AP will become the first developed state in the country," Das said.
Thanking the CII for its effort to promote and market Andhra Pradesh as an investment destination, K Vidyadher Rao, the state industries minister, said that the state's initiatives in the areas of infrastructure, human resources, good governance, industrial policy environment and services sector would be showcased during the Partnership Summit.
On the highlights of the summit, B V R Mohan Reddy, the chairman of CII-Andhra Pradesh chapter, said that the four-day conference would have 40 major sessions with international delegates on contemporary issues such as global economic outlook, managing a country's money, international trade policy, military strategy, US-India relations, China/India FDI dichotomy, Pakistan and its future relationship with India, the fall of major corporates in the world, and WTO: the road to Mexico.
Some of the speakers at the summit would be Supachai Panitchpakdi, the director general of WTO, Robert Blackwill, the US ambassador in India, Howard Davies, chairman of financial services authority of UK, Patricia Hewitt, the secretary of state for trade and industry, UK, Raymond Lim, the minister of trade and industry, Singapore, C K Prahlad of the University of Michigan, Sam Pitroda of World Tel and James C Morgan, the chairman of Applied Materials, US.
The speakers also include Rakesh Mohan, the deputy governor of RBI, Narayana Murthy of Infosys, Ramalinga Raju of Satyam, Sunil Mittal of Bharti, K V Kamath of ICICI and Naresh Chandra, the former ambassador of India to US.
The summit would identify political, strategic and economic issues that will drive business and governments, and put these issues in the right perspective to facilitate better decision-making.