Goa aims to be among top 25 start-up hubs in Asia by 2025

The Goa government unveiled a start-up policy that aims to make the coastal state feature among the top 25 destinations for early stage companies in Asia by 2025. The `Goa start-up policy’ was approved this morning at a Cabinet meeting chaired by Chief Minister Manohar Parrikar.

“The idea behind having a start-up policy is to create employment in Goa and stop brain drain from the state,” said Information Technology Minister Rohan Khaunte. He was talking to reporters in the presence of Parrikar after the Cabinet meeting.

The policy document, circulated to the media after the meeting, envisages to make Goa one of the most preferred start-up hubs of India, and make it feature in the top 25 start-up destinations in Asia by 2025. “Facilitating entrepreneurship, which in turn leads to value creation and job creation, is a governance and a moral imperative which the Government of Goa is unflinchingly committed to,” stated the introduction of the policy.

The government has said the policy will play a key role in facilitating an environment that is supportive and makes the start-ups both technologically innovative and globally competitive. The document has stated that one of the transformative factors of technology start-ups is its matchless potential to exponentially scale up, leading to large-scale job creation.

While the government is committed to promoting entrepreneurs from Goa and generating employment for Goans, the government is equally committed to inviting the best and the brightest entrepreneurial and technology minds from outside Goa in order to built a robust start-up eco-system within the state,” it added. The policy’s objective is to provide assistance to the Goan entrepreneurs and local start-ups to create at least 100 successful early stage ventures in the next five years, targeting generation of employment for at least 5,000 Goans.

The policy aims to develop minimum 2,00,000 lakh sq ft area for technology innovation and incubation centre. “The policy will create an eco-system that makes it easy for Goan students to acquire technical skills required for employability and professional growth in the start-up space.” The government said the policy will be in force for three years from the date of its notification.