THURSDAY, JULY 28, 2005
Japan FDI: West Bengal sees no ripple effects
IANS KOLKATA: WEST Bengal, once a hub of militant trade union activities but now the top beneficiary of Japanese investment in India, would be unaffected by the Gurgaon clashes involving workers of a Honda factory, the ruling Left Front government said today.
“I don’t see any impact of the Gurgaon episode on West Bengal. Our experience with the Japanese as investors is quite pleasant,” West Bengal industry minister Nirupam Sen said here.
As Communist leaders aggressively took up the cause of the workers injured in Monday’s alleged police brutality during a protest against the Honda management for firing and suspending their colleagues, the Left Front here boasted of cosy industrial ties with the Japanese.
“We have received no complaints against Japanese employers from our workers. Nothing against them has ever been reported to me or the labour department,” said Sen. West Bengal has lately attracted the largest Japanese investment in India, despite being notorious in the past for trade unionism and sick units during the three-decade left rule.
“In West Bengal, whenever there is any industrial dispute we immediately intervene for an amicable solution before it reaches a flashpoint. The peaceful resolution of the tea strike is one such recent example where both the management and the workers were happy.”
The minister’s reassurance might bring some comfort to Japanese Ambassador Y Enoki who said the Gurgaon incident and its fallout could cast a shadow over foreign direct investment (FDI) from Japan into India.
“Because the Left Front is in power in West Bengal, I can assure you that the Japanese will not face any problem,” said Sen, a member of the Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M).
“We neither allow the Gurgaon kind of police atrocities to happen nor sit idle as worker-employer relations deteriorate.”
In West Bengal, Japan’s Mitsubishi Chemical Corporation has made the biggest investment of Rs 20 billion in the Purified Terephthalic Acid project in the Haldia industrial town. “The Haldia experience of Japanese is an exemplary one. It commenced production before the target date and no man day has been lost in this profit-making project,” Sen said.
Among others, Marubeni is involved in the power sector.
Encouraged by the success of Mitsubishi, a section of private Japanese investors in diverse business fields has shown keen interest in fresh investments in West Bengal. West Bengal is also the recipient of a huge loan of Rs. 4 billion by the Japanese Bank for International Cooperation (JBIC) for infrastructure development such as construction of flyovers, bridges and mass transport systems.
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