GIFT City Gujarat, Gujarat, India

🇮🇳 Gujarat International Finance Tec-City (GIFT City) is a business district promoted by the Gujarat government through a joint venture company. GIFT City is India's first operational smart city and international financial services centre. GIFT is an operational smart city developed in the Gandhinagar metropolitan region as a greenfield development. The city is located on the banks of the Sabarmati River and is around 12 km (7.5 mi) from Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel International Airport. The city is designed so residents can walk to work, and includes commercial, financial and residential complexes.

The city is connected through 4-6 lane State and National Highways. A double corridor metro system is being constructed to connect GIFT City to the nearby airport and various parts of Ahmedabad.

The total area for the development of GIFT is 886 acres out of which the SEZ (Special Economic Zone) constitutes 261 acres. The project area under development can hence be classified under the SEZ area and the Non-SEZ area (also known as the Domestic Tariff area or the DTA).

GIFT City has dedicated Multi Services Special Economic Zone (SEZ) for international operations of various services sectors players. Also within, GIFT Multi Services SEZ, GIFT houses India's first International Financial Services Center (IFSC) approved by the Government of India.

For the purpose of implementation of the SEZ, GIFT Company Limited has set up an SPV (Special Purpose Vehicle) (100% subsidiary of GIFTCL) namely GIFT SEZ Ltd, designated as the developer organization of the SEZ. GIFTCL has also set up 5 subsidiary companies for the implementation of specialized infrastructure including Power, Water, ICT (Information & Communication Technology), District Cooling and Solid Waste Management.

History On 15 December 2011, The Economic Times reported city officials in GIFT were inviting companies from Singapore that wished to expand but could not do so due to a lack of land in Singapore to open their businesses in GIFT. Investments from banks, private equity companies, insurance companies and asset management companies were considered.

On 26 December 2011, The Times of India reported China's technology giant Huawei was likely to provide technology to GIFT. According to Eric Yu, president, of enterprise business of Huawei India, this technology included networks, data centres and surveillance.

On 2 October 2014, NetIndian reported a new World Trade Centre would be set up in GIFT City as per an agreement between the World Trade Centre India Services Council (WTCS) and GIFT City Ltd. It would be completed within four years.

BSE Broker's Forum planned to invest ₹1.2 billion (equivalent to ₹1.7 billion or US$20 million in 2023) to build a commercial tower to set up back-office operations. They were allocated 28,000 square metres (300,000 sq ft) to develop the commercial tower with the likelihood of setting up an exchange office.

According to The Times of India on 18 October 2014, the Bangalore-based Brigade Group would invest ₹5 billion (equivalent to ₹8.0 billion or US$94 million in 2023) over the next few years to develop 0.10 million square metres (1.1 million square feet) of built-up area with a future option of investing another ₹6 billion (equivalent to ₹9.6 billion or US$110 million in 2023) to develop 0.16 million square metres (1.7×106 sq ft).

In November 2018, The Wire reported the Government of Gujarat State would buy out the 50% stake of beleaguered Infrastructure Leasing & Financial Services (IL&FS) in the GIFT City to minimize delays to the project. In June, 2020, IL&FS concluded sale of its stake in GIFT-City for ₹320 million (equivalent to ₹380 million or US$4.5 million in 2023) equity value to the state government.

According to Business Standard, OPS Fund Services, a subsidiary of OPS Global, Singapore, received a license to open in the International Financial Service Centre at GIFT city.

On 5 December 2019, Business Standard reported that Bank of America opened a Global Business Services Center at GIFT.

On 6 January 2020, Accor opened the first international hotel in GIFT City.

On 20 January 2020, The Economic Times reported GIFT was ready to begin trading in rupee-dollar in the futures market.

In July 2022, JPMorgan Chase, Deutsche Bank and Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group opened new offices at the International Financial Services Centre. Prime Minister Narendra Modi formally opened Singapore Exchange's futures trading operation "Nifty", and India's first international bullion exchange was opened.

Transport GIFT City will have a metro station connecting it to the Ahmedabad metro network by March 2024.