Telecommunications and Information Technology Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad on Thursday said that global technology companies such as Cisco, Facebook and Hewlett Packard (HP) are interested in investing in India.

“It is an indication of excitement, which the new Government has provoked. For example, we had meetings with Cisco Chief John Chambers, Facebook’s COO and today with HP global Executive Vice-President, and all of them are excited of the investment opportunity in India,” Prasad told reporters here.

Prasad, on Wednesday, met senior executives from HP including Executive Vice-President Stuart Pann, Dion Weisler, Executive Vice-President, Printing and Personal Systems and Rajiv Srivastava, Vice-President and General Manager, Printing and Personal Systems Group for HP India.

“They (HP) have around 40,000 people in India and it is their second-largest operations after US,” he said. He said the global companies are positive, especially in electronic manufacturing, because of the incentives given in the Union Budget this year.

The Telecom and IT minister also met a delegation from Japan led by its Economy, Trade and Industry Minister Kazuyoshi Akaba and discussed on similar issues including use of solar energy for mobile towers.

“They have an organisation called NEDO (New Energy and Industrial Technology Department) which is willing to install (on an experimental basis) a solar powered Base Station Tower Systems,” Prasad said.

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