Prime Minister Modi’s visit to the U.S. has sealed some big wins for his home state of Gujarat, including with Google, which announced the opening of a Global FinTech Operations Center in GIFT City, Gujarat.
“It will cement India’s fintech leadership thanks to UPI, and RR and we are going to build on that foundation and take it globally,” Google CEO Sundar Pichai said on Friday, when he met with Mr Modi in Washington DC.
“…And with the advent of AI, I think the opportunity for India to make more progress is definitely exciting,” he added.
GIFT city, which is in the process of being built, is the business district in Gandhinagar.
Mr Pichai voiced his support for the government’s ‘Digital India’ vision. Google had announced a $10 billion India Digitization Fund in 2020.
The Hindu reached out to Google on Saturday for details of the fintech centre, which have not been announced .
PM Modi meets top business leaders
Besides Mr. Pichai, PM Modi also met CEOs of Amazon Andrew Jassy and Boeing David L. Calhoun in Washington.
Mr. Calhoun in an interview with ANI said, “The most important takeaway is the PM’s passion for India’s development. He does have a specific interest in aviation, in aerospace. It is a big vision.”
He emphasised the importance of India playing a significant role not only for the country but also for the broader region broadly in aviation and aerospace.
Whereas, Amazon CEO Andrew Jassy expressed his commitment to generating additional employment opportunities in India after meeting PM Modi.
“Very interested in helping create more jobs, helping digitise more small and medium size businesses and helping more Indian companies and products be able to be exported all around the world,” said Mr. Jassy.
(with inputs from ANI)
