Agartala, September 20 (TIWN): Chief Minister Manik Sarkar on Saturday invited higher industrial investments in Tripura and said that a wide range of natural resources waiting to be explored.

Addressing the inaugural session of the Engineer's Day at Prajna Bhawan here this afternoon, Chief Minister Sarkar said that the NE region was still largely under-developed with huge potential for industrial growth. He said that the region could be explored for optimum utilization of natural resources including rubber latex. Tripura currently ranks second in the region in rubber latex production.
The state, however, is very low in effective valye addition to the raw latex owing to which much of the tertiary benefits are drawn outside the state.
In contrary to his high flying claims of progress and development, Chief Minister Manik Sarkar today admitted that Tripura, like most other NER states,  was left in darkness in comparisn to other states of the country.
"Few of the main reasons behind the backwardness were poor infrastructure and poor educational facilities", he said.
He batted for better ties with Bangladesh and aaod that the state's geographic isolation could be turned into a strategic advantage if the connectivity networks could be properly channelized through Bangladesh.