Gulf Finance House, a leading Islamic investment bank based in Bahrain, will help India's western Maharashtra state develop a $10 billion industrial zone that will host software, telecom and entertainment businesses.

The bank and the state signed an agreement Friday to develop the project on about 1,600 acres of land outside Mumbai the state's capital and India's finance hub.

The project is expected to attract a total investment in excess of $10 billion from software, entertainment and telecommunications companies, the statement said.

It wasn't clear how much Gulf Finance House was investing.

The agreement comes a year after Gulf Finance House signed a similar agreement with Maharashtra to develop a hub for energy companies. The bank helped raise $630 million for the first phase of that project, which will now be added to the industrial zone proposed Friday.

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

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