HYDERABAD:Industries minister Jupally Krishna Rao on Tuesday showcased the investment opportunities in Telangana State before a delegation of Ontario Province of Canada.
The delegation from Ontario Province met Krishna Rao in Philadelphia, USA. Krishna Rao is on a five-day visit to the US to participate in the annual international convention BIO and will also be visiting Washington DC for meeting with various stakeholder groups.
The Ontario delegation consisted of minister Moridi, minister for research, commercialization and entrepreneurship, Ontario; Bill Mantel, assistant deputy minister for research, commercialization and entrepreneurship, Roshan Mohan, Consul (Economic Affairs-Ontario), Ontario International Marketing Centre and Christine Poopalapillai, Senior policy adviser.
During the meeting, Krishna Rao briefed the delegation about the newly-launched industrial policy of Telangana -- TS iPASS -- and its salient features, life sciences policy of the state and others.
According to an official release, the delegation was impressed with the new industrial policy, which emphasizes on fast track clearances, penalties for delays, online applications, self-certification and others. Moridi was very appreciative and expressed that the policy promises great potential for global investors.
Highlighting Genome Valley, proposed pharma city, medical devices park, BioAsia and others, Telangana state officials briefed the delegation about the efforts of Telangana government to make the state an innovation destination.
In turn, Moridi briefed the Telangana delegation about Ontario province. “Ontario ranks sixth in the world for research and innovation and 50 percent of the research capacity of Canada is in Ontario. With about 1900 companies, the life sciences sector contributes about $ 40 billion to Ontario’s economy and has over 60,000 skilled workforce,” he said.
Moridi expressed strong desire to build a strong partnership with Telangana focused on economic cooperation, research/technology collaboration, student and faculty exchange. The delegation also agreed to put together a framework for bilateral research funding of translational research in the area of life sciences, information technology, medical devices, bio-agriculture.
Rao extended invitation to the Ontario delegation to visit Hyderabad for BioAsia 2016 and Moridi expressed keen interest to visit personally. A delegation from Ontario is expected to visit Hyderabad in February next wherein the partnership MoU is likely to be formalized with specific areas of cooperation.