Calcutta, July 30: The president and chief executive officer of the Indonesian Salim Group, Anthony Salim, will not attend the signing of the memorandum of agreement between the state government and his conglomerate tomorrow.

No reasons were cited for the no-show.

“Anthony Salim is not coming. I have no idea why he has dropped out,” industries minister Nirupam Sen said.

The group’s executive director, Benny Santoso, and a director, Anton Subowo, will represent the conglomerate during the signing ceremony in the presence of chief minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee.

The agreement will be signed between the West Bengal Industrial Development Corporation and New Kolkata International Development, a company floated by the group with its collaborator Prasun Mukherjee’s Universal Success and Delhi-based construction company Unitech.

As the state government wants to ensure control over the infrastructure projects, particularly the chemical hub in Haldia, WBIDC will have a stake in the company.

“It will be one agreement. But it covers multiple projects and will have several funding components as well as implementation and control structures,” industries secretary Sabyasachi Sen said.

The first of its kind since the Left Front came to pow- er in Bengal, the agreement will include the entire gamut of infrastructure projects that are needed to implement the chief minister’s industriali-sation programme, officials said.

The agreement will mention the gross land requirement for the projects.

The exact area of land required for each project will be worked out only after the government receives the detailed project report.

The main projects are a chemical hub and a multi-purpose special economic zone in Haldia and an industrial park in adjoining Nandigram for small and medium industries.

Two bridges will be built to strengthen the infrastructure in Haldia. A 96-km Raichak-Barasat expressway will connect Haldia to the proposed Kulpi port-cum-SEZ.