Minister Nara Lokesh in US, hardsells Andhra Pradesh as investment destination

Lokesh met some industrialists in San Francisco on Friday.

Hyderabad: Andhra Pradesh IT Minister Nara Lokesh on Saturday reached San Francisco and held a meeting with Indian-origin IT entrepreneurs. Lokesh had kicked off his week-long tour of the United States, starting from October 25, with the goal of attracting substantial investments to the state. As part of his tour, Lokesh will participate as a special guest at the annual IT Serve Alliance Conference in Las Vegas on October 29.

Lokesh’s US itinerary is packed with meetings aimed at securing investments across various sectors. On October 25 and 26, he is scheduled to meet with key representatives from tech giants including Oracle, Patra Synergies, Boson, Span IO, Clarity, Adobe, Scalar, and General Atomics in San Francisco. Following this, he will head to Austin on October 27 for another round of business discussions before meeting executives from Microsoft on October 28.

One of the highlights of Lokesh’s visit will be his keynote address at the IT Serve Synergy Conference in Las Vegas on October 29. In addition to this, Lokesh will also hold high-level meetings with representatives from Amazon, Reviver, Salesforce, and PepsiCo, further emphasizing his focus on drawing diverse investments to Andhra Pradesh.

On October 30, Lokesh will visit Google’s headquarters in San Francisco to explore potential collaborations. On October 31, he will unveil a statue of late NT Rama Rao, the former Chief Minister of Andhra Pradesh, at Sunnymount in Cumming, Georgia. His tour will conclude on November 1 with investor meetings in New York, where he aims to wrap up discussions with major stakeholders.

In San Francisco, explaining the advantages of investment in Andhra Pradesh and the investor-friendly policies being implemented by the government, Lokesh said “In the wake of the Y2K boom, the IT sector had developed rapidly in the cities of Hyderabad and Bangalore. Similarly, we are positioning Andhra Pradesh to develop rapidly by embracing the currently trending AI opportunities”.

He said that under the leadership of N Chandrababu Naidu, who took charge as the chief minister for the 4th time, a young leadership is working actively, and there are 17 new ministers in the cabinet. He said that there are extensive opportunities for investment in the manufacturing, renewable energy, bio-energy, aqua and petrochemical sectors in the newly created Andhra Pradesh.

He said that Chandrababu Naidu has launched a new P-4 policy to eradicate poverty through industrial development in the state, adding that the state is moving forward by setting targets every 100 days for the comprehensive development of AP.

He also said that reforms have been initiated in the education sector to provide skilled human resources in line with industrial needs and thereby provide job opportunities to the youth. Minister Lokesh stated that as the Education Minister, steps are being taken for outcome-based education, and as part of this, changes will be made in the KG to PG curriculum.