'Toronto, desirable destination for Indian companies'

The Greater Toronto Area (GTA) will be the gateway for Indian companies exploring business opportunities in the North American Free Trade Area (NAFTA) region, said Hazel McCallion, mayor of Mississauga City.

She was addressing a seminar on 'Toronto "� Gateway to the NAFTA Market' organised by the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) in Chennai.

According to Hazel, GTA is seen by many as a stepping stone into the US market, thus serving both the entire NAFTA marketplace.

"The key industry clusters in the GTA are media and entertainment, biotechnology, financial services, business process outsourcing and automotive. It is also home for over 345,000 people of Indian origin, which is nearly 60 per cent of all Indians living in Canada," she said.

"Toronto is a highly desirable offshore location and also has excellent business environment, robust infrastructure, language and cultural similarities with the United States that will be very attractive for Indian companies considering going global. The multilateral competency has propelled GTA into being one of the most business and investment-friendly in the region," she added.

George Fierheller, chairman emeritus of the Greater Toronto Marketing Alliance (GTMA), lauded Tamil Nadu for the great strides made in the field of information technology and manufacturing. He said that the southern state has been very receptive in attracting overseas investment.

GTMA is currently in India leading a 12-member exploratory business mission comprising business, academic and government officials from the Greater Toronto Area.

The key objective of the mission is to investigate the BPO and knowledge processing outsourcing (KPO) phenomenon as well as seek alliances and investment opportunities during this exploratory mission.

In his welcome address, T T Ashok, chairman, CII-Tamil Nadu, said that Tamil Nadu is emerging as an attractive destination for investment in the manufacturing and information technology sectors. The inherent strengths of the state in the areas of quality education, skilled workforce and investor-friendly policies attract investors globally," he pointed out.

Ashok said that sectors such as information technology, biotechnology, pharmaceuticals and healthcare, education, advanced manufacturing, automobile and auto components, and BPO are some of the potential sectors for cooperation between industries in Tamil Nadu and Toronto.