The industrial sector must remain vibrant for achieving a fast paced and sustained growth. The state had come up with a road map for creating 2.5 million jobs in 98 special economic zones, said Andhra Pradesh Governor ESL Narasimhan.
Delivering the Republic Day address at Parade Grounds here on Tuesday, he said the effort of the state government should be on building quality infrastructure. This would go a long way to augment the employment potential. The government was working to make the state enterprise-friendly by simplifying procedures, rules and registrations. It has extended the ‘pavala vaddi’ (loan at an interest of 25 paise) scheme to give a fillip to small and micro enterprises including food processing units.
Despite the global economic slowdown, the gross state domestic product grew at 5.53 percent during 2008-09 with agriculture and services sectors registering a growth of 2.27 per cent and 10.06 per cent respectively. According to estimates for the first half year of 2009-10, the state was recovering fast from the impact of the recession and was expected to register a 7.28 per cent growth in spite of the recent drought and floods, he said.
The agriculture yield had gone up from 13.5 million tone in 2004-05 to 20.4 million tonne in 2008-09.
Kharif production in 2009 was 6.84 million tonne as compared with the normal production of 9.71 million tonne.