Over hundred 'Fortune 500' companies testimony of Gujarat as preferred destination CM Patel

Ahmedabad, Apr 21 (PTI) With more than 100 'Fortune 500' companies currently operating in Gujarat, the state remains a preferred destination for global capital, Chief Minister Bhupendra Patel said here Tuesday.
Addressing FICCI's National Executive Committee Meeting, he said Gujarat aims to grow its economy to USD 3.5 trillion by 2047.
Two semiconductor fabrication plants, recently inaugurated by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, are evidence of Gujarat's emergence as a node in the global semiconductor supply chain, with GIFT City now hosting an AI Centre of Excellence, data centres, and fintech infrastructure, he told industry leaders.
Gujarat has been coming up with enabling policies covering semiconductors, green hydrogen, IT and ITeS, and Global Capability Centres (GCCs), and reaffirmed the state's commitment to carbon neutrality by 2050 and women-led development as a structural priority, he said.
"Viksit Bharat means 'Viksit Gujarat' and FICCI will always be an active partner in this journey," he said, framing the state's trajectory as inseparable from India's broader aspiration of becoming a developed economy by 2047.
Deputy Chief Minister Harsh Sanghavi identified data centres, semiconductors, GCCs, defence, and aircraft manufacturing as the sunrise sectors anchoring Gujarat's next phase of industrial expansion.
On data infrastructure, he asserted that Gujarat will install more data centre capacity over the next two to three years than the rest of India combined.
On semiconductors, the deputy CM confirmed that Asia's largest fabrication plant is coming up in Dholera, a 920-square-kilometre greenfield industrial zone, while a large assembly, test, marking and packaging ecosystem is taking shape at Sanand.
Industrial infrastructure of comparable scale is also ready across Becharaji, Vadodara, and south Gujarat, ensuring that no single corridor becomes a bottleneck, Sanghavi said.
FICCI President Anant Goenka underscored the state's outsized economic contribution.
Despite accounting for roughly five per cent of India's population, Gujarat generates over 8 per cent of national GDP, contributes more than 30 per cent of merchandise exports, and handles 40 per cent of the country's cargo throughput, he said.
"Gujarat's performance continues to inspire...The scale of industrial ambition from semiconductor fabrication units in Dholera and Sanand to the C295 aircraft manufacturing plant in Vadodara is positioning Gujarat as a hub for high-value manufacturing," Goenka added.

(This story has not been edited by THE WEEK and is auto-generated from PTI)