Vijayawada: The much-publicised “Brand AP” whirlwind tour of IT, electronics and education minister Nara Lokesh to several cities of the USA has turned out to be a resounding success.
Significantly, all major companies of the US, including Microsoft, gave a red-carpet welcome to Lokesh, who had undertaken the trip to America to “bring Andhra Pradesh back on track, after the state suffered heavily due to the destructive policies adopted by the previous government.”
Almost all investors, whom Lokesh met in the US, gave a positive response. This is a clear indication that Lokesh’s visit of America will certainly yield good results ahead of the World Economic Forum Summit in 2025.
The IT, electronics and education minister began his US visit on October 25 to propagate the vision of Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu to rapidly develop Andhra Pradesh. The CM backed his vision by ensuring that his government formulated investor-friendly policies.
Lokesh had a fruitful meeting with over 100 representatives of major industries, including Google chief executive officer Sundar Pichai and Satya Nadella, CEO of Microsoft, apart from key personnel of Tesla, Amazon, Apple, Sales Force and several others.
Lokesh, incidentally, is a product of Stanford University.
As special guest of the IT Survey Synergy Summit in Los Vegas on October 29, wherein representatives of 2,300 small and medium companies from 23 countries had been present, Lokesh explained in detail the favourable atmosphere in Andhra Pradesh for investments.
The IT minister instilled confidence within the US-India Business Council and Indian diaspora, stating that this is the right time to invest in AP, which is high in Ease of Doing Business.
Lokesh further stated that these steps had certainly created confidence among investors. He said the 90-minute meeting he had with Tata Group chairman Chandrasekharan convinced him to set up the TCS unit in Visakhapatnam.
He underlined that TCS will soon begin its operations in Visakhapatnam and provide employment to 10,000 youth. He pointed out that HCL too has agreed to expand its operations, employing over 15,000 youngsters.