Karnataka CM charms Japanese PM

George Iype in Bangalore

Ever since Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu hogged the limelight during US President Bill Clinton's visit to Hyderabad in March, his Karnataka counterpart has been waiting for an opportunity to charm a visiting head of the state.

On Tuesday, Chief Minister S M Krishna abundantly charmed Japanese Prime Minister Yoshiro Mori. At the end of his first ever visit to Bangalore, Mori announced a slew of proposals to connect 'the land of rising sun' to the Silicon Valley of India.

Thus, in response to Krishna's fervent plea for increased Japanese investment in the state, Mori said that he will despatch a business and IT mission led by the Japan External Trade Organisation to Bangalore to promote investment in various sectors in the state.

The Japanese premier also gladly welcome a novel proposal from Krishna for setting up, what the chief minister called, an 'IT Combinat' in Bangalore.

According to Krishna, the IT Combinat vision could house a residential township for major IT firms like Hitachi, NEC, Toshiba, Sony as well as the wireless giant of the world NTT DoCoMo. The IT Combinat could also have a language training centre, an institute of m-commerce and an Indo-Japanese culture centre.

"The IT Combinat will strengthen the Tokyo-Bangalore relationship and substantially boost trade," the chief minister said.

Krishna said the US and Japan are the first and second largest IT markets in the world. While Indian software trade with the US is 65 per cent, it is only 4 per cent with Japan. "Bangalore is home to great US companies like GE, CISCO, Motorola, Philips and Unilever. But we do not have any Japanese companies of prominence here. Kindly bring your big companies here in Bangalore," Krishna requested Mori.

The chief minister claimed Bangalore is one of the ten best cities in the world and Karnataka is the silicon state of India. The state's share in software exports from India is more than $1 billion.

Krishna said 12 of the world's 22 SEI-CMM Level 5 certified companies are based in Bangalore. It is also the home to the first Indian company -- Infosys -- to be listed in NASDAQ and the first company -- Wipro -- in the world to get SEI-CMM Level 5 certification in software services.

The state has 820 software exporting units with a cumulative investment of around $800 million and 75,000 skilled IT professionals. Therefore, quoting Japanese words Krishna said, "We want Japan to select Bangalore to be the furusato (home) of IT research and development."

But the Karnataka chief minister said he does not want to limit the Japanese investment in the state to the IT sector alone. While the state is the acknowledged leader in IT, it also has ambitious plans to lead in biotechnology, agriculture and sericulture.

"We have a critical mass of companies and a number of research institutes in biotechnology. There are opportunities for mutual co-operation between Japan and Karnataka in many fields," Krishna said.

He thanked Toyota for coming to Karnataka and setting up shop here. "We will be happy to provide every assistance for the auto component business and manufacturing activities. We also have the most investor-friendly policies in infrastructure areas like power, roads water supply, ports etc," he said.

Krishna urged the Japanese government to participate in the mass rapid transport project planned for Bangalore.

The chief minister also dwelt deep into the Indo-Japanese relationship that he said begun 1,500 years ago when Buddhism was introduced in Japan. "The Indian goddesses of wealth Lakshmi is worshipped as Benzaiten in Japan. Therefore, Arigato, Your Excellency Mr Yoshiro Mori, we are sure your visit will further strengthen this long-standing relationship," Krishna added.

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