Infrastructure Leasing & Financial Services (IL&FS) and Gujarat International Finance Tec-City Company Ltd (GIFTCL) on Tuesday announced the signing of a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with Siemens Ltd to develop Smart Mobility Solutions for GIFT City.

 

GIFTCL is a 50:50 joint venture of Gujarat Urban Development Company Ltd and infrastructure development company IL&FS.

 

The MoU was signed by Hari Sankaran, Vice-Chairman and Managing Director, IL&FS, Ajay Pandey, Managing Director & Group CEO, GIFTCL, and Sunil Mathur, Managing Director and CEO, Siemens Ltd.

 

Joe Kaeser, President and CEO, Siemens AG, who is part of the high-profile German business delegation accompanying German Chancellor Angela Merkel who is in India on a three-day visit from October 4-6, was present at the signing ceremony.

 

He described India as a “highly-attractive” market where Siemens is well represented. The most recent move has been an agreement to establish additional local competences, which will support the ‘Make in India’ programme initiated by Prime Minister Narendra Modi. The programme focuses on energy management, mobility, smart cities, and health technology.

 

Sankaran said GIFT city was designed to generate employment in the financial and IT services sectors. International experience has shown that when such initiatives take off they have huge multiplier impacts on regional and national economies.  

 

GIFT, a globally benchmarked smart city on the banks of the Sabarmati River in Ahmedabad, is an ambitious project, being designed as a hub for the global finance services industry. Over the medium term, GIFT expects to generate 500,000 direct jobs and another 500,000 indirect jobs. The city has already sold development rights equivalent to 14 million square feet. As these developments materialise, these will generate over 80,000 new jobs by 2017-18.

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