MNC CEOs meet with YSR in US

Hyderabad, May 8 (UNI) Several Chief Executive Officers of multinational companies, prominent industrialists, IT, BT experts and agricultural scientists of international repute interacted with Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister Y S Rajasekhara Reddy at St Louis in the US today.

The Chief Minister arrived at St Louis from Chicago to deliver the keynote address at the World Agricultural Congress 2007, according to an official release here.

Dr Reddy held discussions with them on the possibilities of mutual cooperation to boost IT, industry and modern farming in Andhra Pradesh.

The CEOs and IT experts evinced keen interest to invest in Andhra Pradesh in a big way and few of them came out with very innovative ideas such as growing Swiss grass on wetlands to produce ethanol on a huge scale.

While welcoming some of the novel ideas and investment offers, Dr Reddy said several thousands of acre of barren land was available in Andhra Pradesh and asked them to come out with specific proposals.

The government was ready with all types of incentives and a pro-active investor-friendly administration with single window clearance for new industries and projects.

Executives of Optimum Agricultural Solutions and Irrigations System (OASIS), a US-based non-profit organisation formed to address a multitude of problems faced by the farming community, met with the Chief Minister and discussed the problems faced by Indian farmers in general and ryots in Andhra Pradesh in particular.

They offered a comprehensive package of solutions, including uninterrupted power supply from alternative and reneweable resources, to help agriculture and to make farming sustainable for creating permanent income for farmers.

The Chief Minister said, ''What the Indian ryot needs is to make farming remunerative by adopting modern farming methods and marketing strategy so that he can get a reasonable price for the agricultural produce.'' MORE UNI BR VA GM 1909