The first Chinese general Industrial park with focus on textiles will be functional by the end of 2017 near Ahmedabad. The infrastructure for the park will be ready by 2017-end and some of the companies will begin setting up their units by the same time, said the country head of China Association of Small and Medium Enterprises (CASME) in India, Kamlesh Bhadani.

An MoU for setting up this project was signed between China Development Bank and Gujarat government during the Vibrant Gujarat Summit 2015. The state government has set up a high-power committee under the chairmanship of the additional chief secretary of industries for this project.

A group of senior officials of CASME and China Development Bank, including Bhadani and vice-managing director of China Development Bank Xiao Ming Zhen, had met the state chief minister last month. Zhen had said that work on the $1 billion industrial park will begin soon. The ground breaking of the project is likely to be held in the next few months.

Bhadani said that they are looking at two land pockets — one in Sanand and other on Ahmedabad-Rajkot highway. It is going to be a general park and its developer will be CASME. Once the Chinese New Year celebrations are over, they will be conducting road shows and other campaigns to create awareness about this industrial park among the Chinese firms. The work on project will be expedited from March.

Bhadani, speaking about the focus on textile sector in this park said that many of the Chinese textile firms will prefer to have a local partner as they will be coming from different environment. There is hardly any value addition in India to the raw material which is exported to China. The Chinese textile companies will do manufacturing here in Gujarat and export the finished product to China, as there is a huge market for this in China

Some of companies interested in the project have already visited Ahmedabad and few more will be coming soon. These firms would like to do due diligence before investing here. Besides bringing in investment, this park will also provide employment on a large scale.