Union Information Technology Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad has said, Andhra Pradesh is going to play key role in the economic development and progress of the nation. He said the future belongs to electronics and hardware manufacturing sectors and that the south coastal state is making giant strides in this area.<br/><br/>The Union Minister today laid the foundation stone for the Visakhapatnam centre of the Society for Applied Microwave Electronics Engineering and Research (SAMEER), an autonomous research institute under the Department of Electronics and Information Technology. He said the Visakhapatnam Centre of SAMEER would be developed as an important research centre for studies on electro-magnetic waves, adding that the strategic location of Visakhapatnam has prompted for the establishment of this research centre.<br/><br/>Mr. Ravi Shankar Prasad said that the Centre has sanctioned four electronic manufacturing clusters to Andhra Pradesh while one more is in the pipeline. He said the Centre is reviewing the policy on IT Investments Regions (ITIR) in the country and once it is finalised Andhra Pradesh would be allotted with one ITIR as was announced earlier. He also said National Informatics Centre (NIC) would soon be coming up in the State. <br/><br/>Union Minister M. Venkaiah Naidu, who also participated in the programme, observed that the Port City—Visakhapatnam is well qualified to grow and evolve into a major city of world standards. He said the city, in recent times, is making progress in varied sectors and praised the people of the city for their orientation towards development in all adversities. The programme was attended by Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu, his cabinet colleagues and MPs besides the State BJP President Dr. K. Haribabu.