Hyderabad, April 11: Chief Minister K Rosaiah proposed a Festival of Andhra Pradesh in the Republic of Tatarstan (a State of Russian Federation) and a Festival of Tatarstan in AP to boost bilateral, cultural and tourism ties between both the nations.
He was speaking after signing the `Protocol on the implementation of the agreement between the Government of Republic of Tatarstan and the Government of Andhra Pradesh’ at the camp office here Saturday.
Tatarstan Deputy Prime Minister Valeeva Zilya and AP’s Tourism and Information Minister J Geeta Reddy signed the agreement in the presence of the Chief Minister.
The Chief Minister described the Protocol Agreement as a memorable one and said that there was vast potential to boost bilateral cooperation between Andhra Pradesh and Tatarstan in the areas of pharmaceuticals, biotechnology, petrochemicals and chemicals, gas-based industries, power plant machinery, aerospace, manufacture of defence equipments, Information Technology and Information Technology Enabled Services, Human Resources and Special Economic Zones.
Rosaiah said that AP was the leader in pharmaceuticals particularly in bulk drug manufacturing and formulations and off-shore gas etc. He said a petroleum and petro-chemical investment corridor is being developed from Visakhapatnam to Kakinada all along the coast and there are ample opportunities for investment in this region.
Tatarstan had been manufacturing machineries for power plants in a big way. As Andhra Pradesh had huge expansion plan to put up power plants across the State, Tatarstan was welcome to put up industrial goods-manufacturing units here, Rosaiah said.
The Chief Minister said the State had huge gas reserves, the biggest in the country of natural gas and there was scope for bilateral cooperation in this field. The State had already established Special Economic Zone in aerospace and Tatarstan was welcome to put up units in this sector, he said.
A delegation of officials from the State would visit Tatarstan soon and invite them for investments, the Chief Minister said. Valeeva said, “The atmosphere here is very friendly,’’ and described the Protocol agreement as a momentous one.
Tatarstan acting Deputy Minister for Youth, Sports and Journalism Berezinskil Anatoly, Deputy Director of the Department of Officials Protocol Mingalieva Rita, AP Minister for Tourism and Information Geeta Reddy, Industries Department advisor Peter Hasan, Chief Secretary SV Prasad and other officials participated in the meeting.
———Agencies