Dubai,  The Odisha government has received investment intents worth more than Rs 21,000 crore with employment potential for 19,000 people in different sectors during Odisha Investors' Meet held in Dubai on Wednesday, officials said.

Riding on the last two years of a high level of investments approved by the Odisha government, amounting to over $50 billion since 2021, the state government is attracting Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) in sectors such as Metals and Metal downstream, Chemicals and Petrochemicals, Textiles and Apparel including Technical Textiles, Food processing including Seafood processing, ESDM, Logistics and Clean Energy.

In this regard, the Odisha Investors Meet was held in Dubai under the leadership of Naveen Patnaik, along with a delegation of senior officials from the government of Odisha.

The Investors Meet was jointly organised with the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FICCI) and the Embassy of India in UAE.

It was attended by more than 150 companies based out of the UAE and the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region from sectors comprising minerals and metals processing, petrochemicals, chemicals, plastics, heavy industries, clean energy, food processing including sea food processing, electrical equipment and electronics manufacturing, logistics and warehousing, real estate, and hospitality.

Leading industry associations from the region including Indian Business and Professional Council (IBPC) also participated in the event.

During the Investors Meet, highlighting the various advantages of Odisha state, Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik addressed the gathering underlining Odisha's Mineral advantage; Odisha's human resource advantage; the state's use of enabling technology in delivering efficient and effective investment facilitation and Odisha's progressive policy and governance advantage.

"Odisha holds the lion's share of India's mineral reserves with 96 per cent of the country's chromite reserves, 92 per cent nickel, 53 per cent bauxite, 45 per cent manganese, 35 per cent iron-ore, and 23 per cent coal reserves of India. This has made Odisha the largest producer of Steel, Stainless Steel, Ferro Alloys, Alumina, and Aluminium in India. Odisha also has 11 per cent of India's water resources. The state has a 480-km long coastline making it a natural choice for setting up ports, and for international trade," he said.

The State is home to a large and highly skilled workforce. Highlighting Odisha's human resource advantage, Patnaik said: "We have made good investments in setting up technical and professional institutes at all skill levels - ITIs, Polytechnics, and engineering and management colleges. Eleven of India's top 100 Industrial training institutes are in Odisha. With the assistance of the Asian Development Bank (ADB) and the Institute of Technical Education Services (ITEES), Singapore, the Government of Odisha has recently established the World Skill Centre in Bhubaneswar to prepare the Odia workforce for modern and new age industry."

On Odisha's use of enabling technology in delivering efficient and effective investment facilitation, he said, the state's single window portal for investors, GO SWIFT has transformed the B2G interface with its user-friendly features which provide time-bound clearances for over 50 G2B services. Odisha is also home to over 1200 start-ups, many of which are in the technology space.

Patnaik also announced that the state would be conducting the third edition of its flagship Global Investors Meet - "Make In Odisha 2022" during November 30- December 04, 2022 at the state capital Bhubaneswar, India. The Chief Minister extended the invitation to businesses in the MENA region to attend the Make In Odisha 2022 Investor Meet and witness the opportunities the State offers.

UAE based multinational retail conglomerate, Lulu Group International signs MoU worth Rs 1,500 crore to explore investment opportunities in Odisha to set up Hypermarkets, shopping malls and Agri & Seafood sourcing and processing hubs in Bhubaneswar, Cuttack and Rourkela. This was announced by Lulu Group Executive Director Ashraf Ali MA during the meeting Patnaik in Dubai.

The team Odisha also conducted one-on-one B2G meetings with major companies of the region such as LuLu Group, NBTC Group, Sharaf Group, Twenty Fourteen Holding and Tablez Group, ERAM Group, Sobha Group, Arab and India Spices LLC, Tabreed, etc. The State Government invited them to explore Odisha in their future expansions and apprised them of the huge Indian and sub-continent market.

The government also assured all the companies of unmatched facilitation and support.