CLEVELAND — Wanted: Indian companies to invest resources and capital in Northeast Ohio. Business leaders and community officials from Cleveland and four other municipalities in the surrounding area are wooing Indian businesses in an effort to expand trade relations with the South Asian nation.

The region hosted a visiting delegation in late May of Indian businessmen from Gujarat, a thriving industrial state on India's western coast, in an effort to boost India-Ohio trade. The weeklong mission — the first in a series of Ohio-India initiatives planned — established initial ties between a variety of Indian companies and Northeast Ohio organizations and businesses.

"This mission represents the first major step toward an active program of two-way business and trade development between India and the state of Ohio," David Silk, a principal at SGI Global Business Advisors LLC, said. The Cleveland-based international trade and development firm co-organized the mission with Zodiac Business Advisors, an Indian business-services provider with offices in the United States.

"We intend to pursue more missions and initiatives like this one, to make sure that this relationship becomes far more significant to both economies than it presently is," Silk added.

The mission culminated with an announcement by Ohio Lt. Gov. Lee Fisher that the state intends to open a trade office in India. While other states may finalize an agreement with a new investor by saying good-bye, Fisher said, "In Ohio, when you close the deal, it's 'Hello.'"

The delegation, which visited Cleveland and the nearby cities of Akron, Beachwood, Stow and Twinsburg, included representatives from the clinical research, plastics, laboratory-equipment manufacturing and architectural fittings and fixtures industries.

Mission participants had the opportunity to visit major industrial facilities in the region and were briefed on the local economy and industries presented in Northeast Ohio. They also met with representatives of BioEnterprise, a business initiative designed to grow health-care companies and commercialize bioscience technologies in the region, which has been widely credited with driving the surge in Ohio's biomedical development in recent years.

Silk said many of the mission participants expressed an interest in establishing operations in Northeast Ohio following their visit.

"I just received an unsolicited e-mail from one of the [businessmen] that totally blew me away," he said. "The man thanked us for making his visit so successful. He said he met with many local dignitaries and was very impressed by what he saw and heard. But we got that kind of feedback from most of the mission members - they were familiar with larger states like New York or California, but not the Midwestern states — and they were really pleased by what they saw."

One such individual was Kalpesh Kalthia, managing director of Mayfair Clinical Education & Research Center Pvt. Ltd., who is looking to build a $3 million to $5 million bio-analytical lab in either San Diego or Northeast Ohio. Kalthia, who said his decision hinges on the financial incentives the region offers him, projected the facility will employ 30 to 40 workers.

"Mayfair was very complimentary toward us," Silk said. "We made a good impression on them."

Other members of the group also forged relationships with their Northeast Ohio hosts. Pravin Patel, who represented an Indian manufacturer of stainless-steel door handles and other products, met with local architectural firms, among them Cleveland-based Richard L. Bowen & Associates. And Mitesh Mehta, a principal at Microsign Products, a Gujarat-based manufacturer of plastic wiring harnesses for the automobile industry, spent time with auto-parts makers in Twinsburg and the nearby community of Warren. Mehta confirmed that he would like to invest in the U.S. market.

The Indian trade group visited Ohio with the assistance of Zodiac Business Solutions president Ashish Mehta, who participated in a previous India trade mission to Ohio that was organized by Radhika Reddy, a partner at Ariel Ventures LLC in Cleveland and the president at the India-Ohio Chamber of Commerce.

Mehta credited the various municipal and state officials, pro-business and Indian cultural groups from across Northeast Ohio with making the trip a success. Members of Ohio's Indian community that helped organize or participated in the mission included the Federation of India Community Associations, the India-Ohio Chamber of Commerce and Ohio State Rep. Jay Goyal, the first member of the Indian-American community to be elected to the Ohio Legislature.

"The success of this mission would not have been possible with the support of many of the organizations and communities who have welcomed this mission," he said. "They all see the importance of making sure that this mission and others to follow succeed. What is at stake is vital to the development of the ties between our regions."

SGI is already working with state and municipal officials and business leaders from across Ohio to arrange future trade visits from India, as well as send groups from Ohio to the country later this year and in 2008.

"We would like to see more trade missions from Gujarat come to Ohio. We want to show more industries what the state and Northeast Ohio can offer them in terms of investment potential," Silk said. "We plan to send a small delegation to India in the latter part of 2007 and early next year. Nothing has been finalized yet because there are still a lot of conversations in progress, but this last Indian trade mission was so successful — many of those on the mission stayed here longer than they planned to — we are excited about sending a delegation to India."