In a key development on the ambitious Mumbai 3.0 mission, Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis on Tuesday said he has signed five MoUs here, including four with Singaporean companies, for the Raigad Pen Smart City Project.
Speaking to PTI here during the World Economic Forum Annual Meeting, Fadnavis said the smart city project has been launched here with these MoUs with five foreign companies, and it will be one of its kind, just about 15-20 kms away from the Navi Mumbai airport.
The biggest thing is that it's for the first time the government is entering into a joint venture with a private party under which the land is bought by the private party and the government is developing the land through the Mumbai Metropolitan Region Development Authority, he said.
1 January 2026
Get the latest issue of Outlook Business
"This will host, in fact, the best business district and all the frontier businesses will be located there. GCCs (Global Capability Centre) will be located there," he said, while adding that the names would be shared soon.
"But I can tell you that the who's who from the global community, investors' community have shown their interest here. They have inked an MoU with us. So I think that it's something which will make the start of the third Mumbai," he said He said it will be bigger than BKC (Bandra Kurla Complex, a key business district of Mumbai) because at the first instance, it is around 300 acres, but we want to expand it to 1,000 acres. He said Prime Minister Narendra Modi has already announced that Mumbai is the Fintech capital of India, and the entire Fintech ecosystem will be there. "Today we have a wave of GCCs. Now it's not the IT, it is GCC, which is the new wave. And we would like to capture the entire GCC wave in this new city. And these MoUs, which we have inked today, are about the GCCs and in the space of Fintech," the chief minister said. On overall investment commitments for Maharashtra at Davos, he said, the signing of MoUs is just a byproduct.
"Since it is an investors' place where all the investors meet, we sign MoUs here, but our main goal is not the signing of MoUs. Our main goal is to establish collaborations," he said. "So today we have signed many strategic MoUs, which are collaborations with international institutions, many international universities like MIT, companies that are in Medtech, etc. "We had a round table here with the Medtech companies. And I think Medtech is something which is going to take our healthcare to the next level," he said.
Fadnavis further said the collaboration on the knowledge side, with the best companies in innovation, urban planning, urban governance, urban mobility, etc., is our focus here.
"So I think more than investment MoUs, the strategic MoUs which we did are also very important, and I feel that they will not only bring the knowledge, but they will also bring the technology, and that will transform the entire business," he said.
He further said that collaborations being made here are not only for Mumbai but the entire state.
When we talk about urban governance, city planning, urban transport, circular economy, knowledge or strategic MoUs, these are for all cities of Maharashtra, he said.
These collaborations will expand our knowledge, technology and capabilities, too, he added.
On developments in areas earlier facing naxalism, he said Gadchiroli is now becoming a new steel hub, and investors are coming with FDI.
Be it Gadchiroli or Nandurbar, a renewed interest is being seen among investors as well as the people, he said, asserting that the investment potential of the state is not limited to a few districts or areas but is spread across Maharashtra.
He also said mainstreaming of people is also happening on a large scale, and the government has prepared job opportunities on a vast level and is also working on training and upskilling people.
On interest in Maharashtra and India at Davos, he said the Indian presence is significant now here due to the efforts of Prime Minister Narendra Modi since 2014.
"What we are essentially trying to do is to harp on this ecosystem, to take advantage of this ecosystem which Prime Minister has created, and we want to build on that trust to attract investors," he said.
He said Davos is the place you have to be present if you want to be relevant in today's world."
