(GFH), a leading Islamic investment bank based in Bahrain has announced that it has signed a deal to develop a $10 billion special economic zone (SEZ) near Mumbai to tap booming sectors such as energy and telecommunications.

The zone, proposed to be located in an area of 1,600 acres alongside the Mumbai-Pune expressway and it will include an energy city, a telecom city, a software city and an entertainment city.

The investment is an addition to the bank’s commitment earlier this year to invest $2 billion (Rs 8,000 crore) in creating an “Energy City”, towards which it has already raised $630 million (Rs 2,520 crore) for the first phase.

Peter Panayiotou, GFH's Chief Executive Officer said "Last year, we signed an MoU with the state government to set up SEZ which featured only an energy city but as the proposal evoked a tremendous response, we decided to explore possibilities of expanding the scope of the SEZ and found that investors from all over the world were interested in investing in IT & ITES, telecom and entertainment, which are the booming sectors of India's economy."

Maharashatra Chief Minister Vilasrao Deshmukh says, “This investment will give a great boost to the state and further impetus for investment and create 3,00,000 employment generation.”

Esam Janahi, Chairman of Gulf Finance House said “We view India as a highly robust economy with extremely sound fundamentals and the opportunities that India offers within the infrastructure and its allied sectors, such as energy, software and telecommunications are tremendous.”

Founded in 1999, Gulf Finance House is one of the Middle-East’s most-respected investment banks. It has several infrastructure investments, worth $12 billion, across the world.