VISAKHAPATNAM: THE city has been selected to host another international conference in September. The Union government had selected Visakhapatnam for hosting a three-day BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) summit on urbanisation from September 14. The delegates will discuss investments, urbanisation, formation of new cities and policies and will explore solutions for the challenges.
The steering committee meeting of the conference was held in the city on Wednesday. Chief secretary SP Tucker, joint secretaries of Union Urban Development Ministry B Anand and Alok Dimri discussed the arrangements for the conference with the district administration.
On the occasion, Anand said that at the concluding ceremony of the conference, Visakha declaration would be issued. The declaration would play a vital role in the ministers conference of BRICS to be held on October 15 and 16 in Goa. The conference would discuss how to increase the productivity, how to make a separate urban finance system and creation of employment opportunities. Besides 100 delegates from BRICS, as many as 400 delegates from various places across the country would attend the conference, Anand said.
Collector N Yuvaraj informed the officials that the administration would make all the arrangements to host the conference. VPT chairman MT Krishna Babu, GVMC commissioner Pravin Kumar, joint collector J Nivas, VUDA vice-chairman T Baburao Naidu and senior officials of the Urban Development, New Delhi, P Kapoor and Devayani Ghosh spoke.