Gujarat is India’s growth engine: USIBC

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Gearing up to participate in the next years Vibrant Gujarat Summit as a partner country, the US India Business Council has termed Gujarat as India’s “growth engine”.

“The state of Gujarat is one of the leading states in India for industries and is recognised as India’s growth engine,” USIBC president Mukesh Aghi yesterday said in an interaction with a delegation of senior official and business leaders from Gujarat.

“Vibrant Gujarat Summit is one of the most notable efforts in India’s attempts to place itself as the topmost investment destination,” he said, adding that USIBC is delighted to partner with the Vibrant Gujarat Summit.

Aghi said the summit is also timely as it will be held during a critical phase of the GST roll-out.

Led by Bharat Lal, Resident Commissioner of Gujarat, the Gujarat delegation concluded its multi-city roadshow in the US.

The multi-city industry roundtables aim to  provide an opportunity for the delegation to present Gujarat as the leading investment destination in India.

SIBC organised industry receptions and roundtables in Houston, Chicago, New York, Washington DC and Menlo Park, providing an opportunity for the delegation to meet over 100 top US companies across industries, including healthcare, food and agriculture, defence, logistics and infrastructure.

Some of the companies in attendance during the roadshow included MasterCard, UST Global, JP Morgan, Thompson Reuter, Abbott, Aemetis, Lockheed Martin, Cisco and Welspun.

As part of the roadshow, the Council also hosted a roundtable with Ajay Pandey, the Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer of the Gujarat International Finance Tec-City (GIFT).

GIFT is being developed as a global financial and IT services hub, a first of its kind in India, designed to be at or above par with globally benchmarked financial centers.

Pandey discussed the International Financial Services Centre in GIFT and the benefits to the entities setting up operations in these cities that include the Minimum Alternative Tax, reduced from 18.5 per cent to nine per cent, the Security Transaction Tax (STT), Commodity Transaction Tax (CTT) and Long Term Capital Gains (LTCG) waived off, a media release said.

Source : http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/articleshow/54376135.cms

 

Cisco readies plan to set up manufacturing plant in India

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Technology major Cisco is working on a plan to establish a manufacturing facility in India and is in talks with the government for the same, a top official of the company has said.

Terming India as one of its “best bases”, Cisco CEO Chuck Robbins said the company is “very actively involved in India across the board” and working on a broader base from digitisation to smart cities in the country.

He was interacting with reporters at the Cisco Live 2016 annual conference here.

On expansion plans in India, Robbins said, “… Prime Minister Narendra Modi is very committed to manufacturing. We worked through a business case and… presented to him that… That was fantastic and we have been moving forward.”

He added that the company is moving forward on various healthcare and security initiatives, with a lot happening on the digital cities front.

Cisco is engaged in over 15 smart cities projects in the country. The company is also working with Andhra Pradesh government for rolling out Bharat Net.

The company views India as one of the best bases and is focusing a lot on education as well, Robbins added.

The country is home to Cisco’s second-largest site, which has about 11,000 employees. It is offering education to 24,000 students spread across 47 schools.

Source : http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/articleshow/53187492.cms

 

Cisco steps up India investments

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Global networking major Cisco, which has set aside a corpus of $280 million for funding early stage start-ups in India, has invested in Kolkata-based Videonetics Technology Pvt Ltd, a video surveillance firm that designs, develops and provides ultra-modern surveillance products integrated with video analytics software.

While the amount invested remains undisclosed, Cisco typically acquires an 18-20 per cent stake in every start-up that it invests in. In an earlier interaction with BusinessLine, Joydeep Bose, Managing Director of Cisco Investments – Asia Pacific Japan (APJ), had said the company typically makes investments ranging from $800,000 to $15 million in a start-up.

Confirming the investment in Videonetics, Alok Bardiya, Country Head (Investments and M&A), Cisco Systems India , told BusinessLine that a second investment has also been closed in a start-up that works on IoT (Internet of Things) solutions for Smart Cities, an area that Cisco is heavily focused on to grow its India revenues.

Revenue milestone

Last year, the company crossed the $1-billion milestone in India revenue and is aiming to achieve $2 billion by FY 2018.

Without disclosing the name of the start-up, Bardiya said: “There are two more investments in the pipeline that we should close soon.” This takes Cisco’s investments in Indian start-ups to a total of six over the last 18 months, and with two more in the pipeline, it will take the total tally of investments to eight by the end of the year.

The $49-billion networking giant has already invested in four Indian start-ups over the last two years, namely, Covacsis, Mobstac, Ineda and MobiKwik.

The company’s innovation strategy in India revolves around four pillars – Invest; Acquire; Co-create with start-ups; Co-develop with partners.

While Cisco made its first India acquisition of Bengaluru-headquartered IT security firm Pawaa for an undisclosed amount last October, it has invested in a total of 25 Indian start-ups, some of which are registered abroad, over the last 10 years.

The company’s first attempt at co-creating with start-ups took wings on Thursday, with the announcement of Cisco LaunchPad, an accelerator programme to co-innovate with early to growth stage start-ups.

Partnerships have been forged with companies like Tech Mahindra, Saankhya Labs and industry body Nasscom to co-develop solutions for Utilities, Internet users and Farmers.

Asked if Cisco had identified any start-up to acquire after Pawaa, Bardiya said: “We continue to look for start-ups that are building disruptive solutions that align with Cisco’s business interests.”

Source: https://www.google.co.in/search?q=Cisco+steps+up+India+investments&client=firefox-b&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjrz66q-dTNAhXDro8KHemgArIQ_AUICigD&biw=1280&bih=676