Odisha CM Meets Australian Consul General Andrew Ford

Bhubaneswar: Australian Consul General Andrew Ford on Tuesday met Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik at the Lok Seva Bhawan here and held discussion on building of bilateral relations between Odisha and Australia on mutual areas of cooperation.

After meeting the Chief Minister, the Australian Consul General said, “The reason I was meeting the Chief Minister today was because, Australia has in the last four to five months, has set up a new Consulate General in Kolkata. That Consulate General covers 13 eastern and north-eastern states of India, including Odisha.”

He said, “I was very keen to talk to the Chief Minister and explain to him, how greatly we are interested in further developing the relationships with the State (Odisha). We are interested particularly in areas such as mining, mining equipment technology and services, education, tourism and health”.

Ford said that they also talked about a development project Water for Women which is being supported by Australia. The project helps provide marginalised communities with water sanitation and health.

“The Chief Minister was very pleased and interested to hear about Australia’s enthusiasm for investing in his State and encouraged us to further follow up on that. We will continue to do so,” Ford said.