'Chennai needs to realise its potential'

Chennai needs to actively promote the city as a manufacturing hub in international markets such as Malaysia, Thailand and China for larger investments in the sector," Michael J Thompson, group CEO, Cushman & Wakefield Asia Pacific said today.

The recent decision of the Finland-based mobile handset major, Nokia to set up its first manufacturing plant in India at Chennai will further accelerate the investments inflows in the city, he said. Nokia plans to invest $150 million (about Rs 650 crore) in the manufacturing plant.

Thompson said that with lots of activity happening in the city, the company plan to strengthen the Chennai office from 15 employees to 30 employees shortly.

The Tamil Nadu government should focus on competing on the international arena by developing the city on par with Shanghai and other international cities and not have narrow view of comparing itself with Bangalore and Hyderabad, he added.

"In this regard, the state government needs to provide the key and crucial factors which are good infrastructure and connectivity. It is only in the last two years that there has been an accelerated activity in commercial real estate segment in the city," he said.

"Chennai has been like a 'sleeping giant' which needs to realise its potential. The city has a well-balanced mix of growing sectors such as auto and autocomponent companies, information technology (IT) and IT- enabled services (ITeS), pharmaceuticals and hospitals that needs to be leveraged," he said.