CII Partnership Summit: Andhra Pradesh to sign 303 MoUs worth Rs 9.89 lakh crore

Andhra Pradesh will sign 303 memoranda of understanding worth Rs 9.89 lakh crore at the CII Partnership Summit, Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu announced on Thursday, 12 November, as the two-day investor meeting, now in its 31st edition, opened in Visakhapatnam.

Naidu placed the new figure on top of the state’s record since June 2024. In two and a half years, he said, Andhra Pradesh had collected 714 investment MoUs worth Rs 22.6 lakh crore. Add the summit agreements and the total since June 2024 rises to Rs 32.49 lakh crore.

He also offered a measure of how much of that has moved beyond signatures. Of the earlier agreements, 526 projects worth Rs 17.10 lakh crore have been granted land and incentive approvals, which the Chief Minister put at a conversion rate of 74 per cent.

Goyal points to Orvakal, Tirupati and Pudimadaka

Union Commerce and Industry Minister Piyush Goyal, who inaugurated the summit with Naidu, singled out the escrow account the state has opened so that incentives reach investors on time. His ministry organises the event with the state government and the Confederation of Indian Industry, and it said in a statement that delegates from nearly 60 countries had come to the port city.

Goyal cited four places as examples of the capability being built in the state: steel and silicon units at Visakhapatnam, the drone city at Orvakal in Kurnool district, Tirupati’s space city, and Pudimadaka in Anakapalli district, which he called the site of India’s first green hydrogen hub. Pitching India to foreign investors, he said the country had finalised nine free trade or preferential trade agreements in four and a half years. Those deals cover 38 countries with a combined GDP of $60 trillion, and negotiations still under way could take the figure to $85 trillion, he said.

Vice-President closes the summit

The minister also recalled that Visakhapatnam had been struck by two cyclones, the first on 28 October and the second on 3 November, only weeks before the delegates arrived, and had still been ready to host them. The summit ends on Friday, 13 November, with a valedictory session to be addressed by Vice-President C P Radhakrishnan.