AHMEDABAD: Bank of America Corp, the second largest US bank, has decided to set up back-office operations in the special economic zone ( SEZ ) area developed by Gujarat International Finance Tec-City in Gandhinagar.

“We recently cleared their proposal in record time of seven days,” said Dr Amiya Chandra, development commissioner, Special Economic Zones, while speaking to mediapersons on Friday.

Though he did not share details of Bank of America’s operations at GIFT City, sources said the bank has firmed up plans to set up a 1,500-seater IT/ITES project to serve its operations in the US.

Bank of America has taken six floors of one of the buildings in the SEZ part of GIFT City, sources added. “They have already been issued an occupancy certificate for an upcoming building. We hope they will move in fully over the next six months,” industry sources said.

Bank of America is expected to begin operations at GIFT City as early as November, with about 100 workers, they added. “At present, there are 234 operational SEZs in India of which 20 SEZs are in the Gujarat zone. With around 10% of the functional SEZs of the country, this zone accounts for 30% of Indian exports from SEZs,” Chandra said, while addressing an open house session on the SEZ & EOU policies, organized at GIFT City by Kandla SEZ on Friday.

