The Confederation of Indian Industry has been invited by the ministry of commerce to partner in India Brand Equity Fund in order to build a national brand for the country.

The CII will now take up the task of promoting the Made in India brand overseas.

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CII sources said the government had asked the apex chamber to work out means and ways to change the perception of the country.

Towards this, the CII had already appointed Ajay Khanna, deputy director general, CII, as chief executive officer for IBEF .

Sources said that 20 industry representatives, in a meeting chaired by ITC Chairman Y C Deveshwar held on Thursday in Kolkata, had identified steps which would be followed to promote India as a national brand.

After consultation with the industry and other stakeholders, the chamber had decided to develop and document success stories in India which will be disseminated to persons inside and outside the country.

With an initial corpus of Rs 159 crore (Rs 1.59 billion) contributed by the government, the interest on the amount will be used to meet the incidental expenses required to promote the cause.

Sources said that such interactive meetings with corporate leaders and government officials had been already concluded in Delhi, Mumbai and Chennai.

Commenting upon the initiative, the chairman of eastern region of CII, Sanjay Budhia, said that main objective of the CII-government partnership is to promote, position and project India in key global markets.

He said that this was imperative to achieve the cherished goal of achieving the target share of one per cent from the current level of 0.6 per cent of the country in the global world trade.

The fund was mooted by the ministry of commerce in 1996 with a view to altering India's perception in the world market and to build the 'Made in India' brand. The India Brand Equity Fund Trust was to make the 'Made in India' label a symbol of quality, competitive price, reliability and service.

The other important aspect decided at Thursday's meeting was to host a credible Web site where the country's positives including corporate success stories would be put up.

Meanwhile, James Abraham of Boston Consulting Group, has been appointed as the facilitator for the project.