The stage is ready for the 7th edition of the Bengal Global Business Summit (BGBS) which is scheduled to be inaugurated on 21 November at the Biswa Bangla Convention Centre in New Town. Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee will be present along with her Cabinet ministers and senior bureaucrats headed by the Chief Secretary HK Dwivedi.

The programme will start at 3 p.m. The two-day BGBS will be held at three venues, namely the Biswa Bangla Convention Centre, Biswa Bangla Mela Prangan and the Dhana Dhanya auditorium, where the concluding programme will be held on 22 November.

The capacity of the main auditorium at the Biswa Bangla Convention Centre is the biggest in the country. Business leaders including Mukesh Ambani, Niranjan Hiranandani, Sajiv Goenka, Sajjan Jindal, Sanjeev Puri, Purendu Chatterjee, Harvardhan Neotia are likely to be present at the function along with a host of industrialists.

There will be delegations from the United Kingdom, Poland and several other countries. Chief Economic Advisor Amit Mitra is likely to attend the conference. There will be interactive sessions between the senior state government officials and foreign delegates, presentation by various state government departments and B2B meetings. Senior bureaucrats led by the Chief Secretary,

Debbashis Sen, managing director Housing and Infrastructure Development Corporation (HIDCO) and senior police officers oversaw the final arrangements for the summit on Sunday. Pavements and railings in New Town, Eastern Metropolitan Bypass and those near Dhana Dhanya auditorium have been spruced up. Elaborate police arrangements will be made in the vicinity of the venues to avoid traffic jams and ensure smooth movement of the guests.

The guests will be put up in the star hotels in New Town and in the city. One of the major thrust areas at the BGBS will be the Micro Small and Medium Enterprises and Textile ( MSME). Bengal occupies the second position in MSMEs in the country and the effort is to make it the Number 1 state. Miss Banerjee is expected to brief foreign delegates in detail about why Bengal is the ideal business destination in India. Among other points,

Bengal is the gateway to the North East and has a huge hinterland. The state government has set up land bank and no man day was lost in the past one decade. The state government is investment friendly and will provide all necessary to the in investors. Tourism has been given the status of an industry and Bengal is coming up in the tourism sector in a big way. The money spent by the state government and the Centre to improve the coast line is likely to increase the volume of tourists in the coastal areas. Digha has been developed and there is scope for investment in the tourism sector in Digha, Mandarmani and Sunderbans.