
GIFT City in the state of Gujarat, located near Ahmedabad airport, has been classified as the country's model Smart City. 'India Investment Journal' caught up with its Managing Director & Group CEO, Ajay Pandey, during a visit to London to explore why it offers the ideal blueprint for India's Smart City drive. What makes GIFT City a model Smart City for India GIFT is an acronym for Gujarat International Finance Tec-City. GIFT City is one of the model smart cities in India because when the entire initiative of smart cities started off and when in June 2015 the criteria was listed, we were the only name listed as a 'model smart city'. This goes to show that we are in a way leading the pack of this journey. This was conceptualised when the Prime Minister, Narendra Modi, was the chief minister of Gujarat. It is India's first international financial services centre (IFSC), on the lines of London, Dubai, Singapore. So it has a Special Economic Zone (SEZ), taxation benefits for the banking sector, insurance sector, capital market players, broker community, among others. It is the only geography in the country where such benefits are available. The City itself is about 886 acres of land, out of which there is a component of about 260 acres which is a one-of-its-kind SEZ. The City was notified as India's first IFSC in April 2015. In the last one year, we worked very closely with the government of India in Delhi and for some budget announcements which have proved conducive enough for these players to come in. What state of readiness is this City in The way it stands today, we have quite a few players in the banking sector already operational and close to $700 million worth of transactions have already been done.
A lot of international players have begun to show their interest in coming to GIFT City. The Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) has announced that India's first international securities and commodities exchange would open up at GIFT in the month of January, corresponding to Vibrant Gujarat 2017. Both the BSE and National Stock Exchange (NSE) are in advanced stages to open India's first international exchange. In the UK, we have held meetings with the London Stock Exchange Group (LSEG), which has a partnership with NSE. They were keen to understand the progress made. We have also had meetings in London Metal Exchange and the Lloyds Insurance marketplace. It is very special to India as a country because it is the first time something like this is happening in India. Such transactions were taking place in Singapore, Dubai and London. This is an attempt to bring back some of the jobs, businesses and other stories back to India. What are some of the plans to populate this City We are organising an International Financial Services seminar during Vibrant Gujarat, supported by the Department of Economic Affairs in the Ministry of Finance. GIFT city showcases some of the world's most unique infrastructure. A few things to flag up include: