Minister for Industries and Commerce Mekapati Goutham Reddy has exhorted senior officials of the Government of Western Australia (GoWA) and its trade representatives to explore the opportunities in Andhra Pradesh and become a partner in its growth.
Mining, electric vehicles and battery technology, infrastructure and financing, textiles and apparel, higher and vocational education, and training and skill development are some of the potential areas for collaboration, the Minister has suggested.
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Addressing a virtual summit on ‘Western Australia turning to India: Investing in its future’, jointly organised by the GoWA and the Indo-Australian Chamber of Commerce (IACC) on Thursday, Mr. Goutham Reddy said the State identified mining as one of its growth engines and issued 380 leases for major minerals, 1,735 quarry leases for cut and dressed blocks of granites, 1,083 quarry leases for industrial minerals and 4,177 quarry leases for other minor minerals.
He said the government was focused on transforming the State into a major hub for electric mobility in the country, and that Vijayawada, Visakhapatnam, Amaravati and Tirupati were declared as model EM cities and hundreds of charging stations were planned to be set across the State.
Besides, the government designated special ‘green zones’ with entry only to non-fossil fuel based vehicles. More importantly, it had been targeted to migrate the entire fleet of the APSRTC to electric mobility by the year 2029.
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The Minister said the Australian entrepreneurs should also look at the opportunities at Krishnapatnam in the Chennai-Bengaluru Industrial Corridor (CBIC).
The other areas in which the Australians could invest were IT, optical products, automobiles, engineering and electrical machinery, pharmaceuticals and food processing.
Australian High Commissioner to India Barry O’Farrell and Member of the Western Australian Legislative Assembly Jessica Shaw, and IACC Director P. Thomas were among those who discussed the areas for collaboration and investment opportunities in the State.