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Bengal for foreign investment: Buddha
by Ajitha Menon

     Kolkata: West Bengal's Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee,who has been in the eye of the storm for defying powerful leaders of his Communist Party of India (Marxist) by his pro-reforms policies, has said that as long as he is in charge of state government, there will be no backing off on foreign investment. Promising better infrastructure for the state, Bhattacharjee told ANI in an exclusive interview that a consensus has been reached on the FDI issue within the state government and the party's rank and file. "At a political level, we have started this debate and this discussion. We have to teach it inside the party. We took a resolution on what should be our attitude towards FDI (Foreign Direct Investment), on disinvestments, about restructuring, about reforms. We have started these discussions because world is changing, we have to formulate new policies according to the new concrete situation. Therefore, in FDI we have reached a consensus. We welcome FDI to improve our productive forces particularly technology," he said.

     Many of India's poor deeply resent economic reforms and a booming economy that they say have benefited the urban middle class but left them struggling to feed their families, much less dream of cars and computers. Although they criticize a federal privatisation drive by New Delhi, the Communists are selling off their own loss-making firms in West Bengal where they have ruled for over 25 years. Analysts say the need to develop West Bengal has led the ruling CPI-M down a path of economic reforms there. It has the world's longest-serving elected Communist government but West Bengal is wooing the world's wealthiest to pour money into its industries, ports and airports, and with some success. Along the way it's beginning to shed much of the dogma, which had made it renowned left-wing bastion for decades. Bhattacharjee, who returned after his successful visits to Singapore and Indonesia, said they were encouraging foreign direct investments without which they would perish. West Bengal, with a population of about 80 million and bordering Bangladesh in India's east, has had a communist government for the past 28 years. For decades the state and its capital Kolkata have been synonymous with militant trade unions, strikes, falling productivity and a reputation of being hostile to industrialisation. When New Delhi favored a command economy during the 1970s and 1980s, there was not so much of a contradiction. But when India began embracing economic reform in the early 1990s, West Bengal had a difficult choice to make.

     The Communists have changed over the past decade, Bhattacharya said, learning their lessons from the collapse of the Soviet Union, the rise of China and economic reforms in communist Vietnam. Bhattacharjee said he was determined not to give in to loneliness and sees a resurgent China for his foreign investments to come into the state. He added that he sees hope in China, which has emerged as the world's fastest-growing economy by drawing in foreign investment while keeping political and economic control firmly in the hands of the Communist Party. "I am trying to formulate a new policy towards east and South East Asia. Our trade is increasing and I am trying to augment our delivery system, infrastructure. We need more ports and we have to augment these present port facilities in Haldia in Kolkata and both airports in Dumdum. If we can improve these port structure particularly cargo capacity then we will get the results," he further said. West Bengal has made its own accommodation with the changing times. After focusing initially on land reforms and, critics say, scaring away industry by promoting workers' rights, it is now actively courting investment.

     Bhattacharjee has been chief minister for the past five years and a senior minister in the state government since his Communist Party of India (Marxist) first came to power in 1977. "PMs (Prime Minister) visit was a clear indication that our business with East in Southeast Asian countries is already increasing and it will further increase in the future. He told me that you have to take full advantage of our location advantage, as West Bengal, Kolkata are the gateway of India. I am in touch with the Japanese government and companies, their FDI investment in India is the highest, and then Chinese are coming. They have already come in a power project the Greenfield project," Bhattacharjee added. He says agricultural reforms in West Bengal had strengthened its rural economy and helped the state economy grow by an average seven percent annually in the past 12 years, faster than India's overall growth rate. The state government was now building on its strong agricultural base to develop the industrial sector, using an abundance of resources such as coal, iron-ore and minerals. West Bengal has already attracted a George Soros-affiliate to set up eastern India's biggest petrochemical plant near Kolkata at a cost of 1.2 billion dollars.

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