Thaindian News

Thiruvananthapuram, July 16 (IANS) Prime Minister Manmohan Singh will inaugurate ‘Emerging Kerala 2012′, the flagship global connect programme of the state government to be held at Kochi from Sep 12 to 14, officials Monday said. The event will be attended by many national and international luminaries.

Emerging Kerala is being organised by the Government of Kerala with Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) and NASSCOM as partners to the event.

Along with the prime minister, who will be inaugurating the event, many union ministers and international luminaries will be participating in the three-day event, the Kerala State Industrial Development Corporation (KSIDC) said.

The state-owned KSIDC is the nodal agency for the summit to be held biennially and expected to propel the state’s economic development through private-public- participation in various projects that will be show-cased at the event.

KSIDC has by now held road shows and promotional events across India and overseas in the run up to the summit.

In a press release issued here Monday, KSIDC said that among those expected to attend are an array of union ministers including Culture Minister Kumari Selja, Commerce Minister Anand Sharma, Urban Development Minister Kamal Nath, Health Minister Ghulam Nabi Azad and Science and Technology Minister Vilasrao Deshmukh.

Also arriving for the programme are foreign dignitaries, including an official delegation from China’s Yunnan province led by Zhu Fei, the deputy director general of the department of commerce.

Francoise Cluzeau, senior adviser at the UK-based National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence, will deliver a keynote address on ensuring quality in healthcare services in Kerala.

Others attending include Montek Singh Ahluwalia, deputy chairman of the Planning Commission, Sam Pitroda, advisor to the prime minister and Kerala’s mentor, and Prof. Gita Gopinath, professor of economics at Harvard University besides leading industrialists and top executives of some of India’s top companies such as Tata, Infosys, Godrej and Mahindra and Mahindra.

The League of Arab States has resolved to take part in the event and their trade and diplomatic delegations are expected to arrive two days in advance for high-level discussions and dialogue.

Diplomatic delegations from several other countries, including the UK, US, Australia and Singapore, have already visited the state in the run-up to the event and expressed interest in inter-governmental and business partnerships.