Announcements likely to be made during Vibrant Summit next week
The engineering sector in Gujarat is going to get a major boost with Vibrant Gujarat Global Investors' Summit 2011 likely to see memorandums of understanding (MoUs) to the tune of Rs 50,000 crore for the engineering sector. Dozen of national and international companies have evinced interest in setting up their projects in the state, agreements for which are likely to be inked during the two day summit starting from January 12, 2011.
Multinational electrical equipments maker Siemens and Japanese sanitaryware maker, Toto have come up with proposals to invest in Gujarat. "Multinational companies like Seimens and Toto have sent proposals to invest approximately Rs 500 crore and Rs 700 crore respectively. Seimens will set up their electrical equipments manufacturing unit near Vadodara, while Toto will set up a sanitary ware unit," said a senior government official.
The government has received over 300 proposals to sign the MoUs in the engineering sector. This involves companies engaged in automobile equipments and ancillary manufacturing, steel pipes, ceramic, electrical equipments including switch gears and other general machinery and equipment manufacturing.
Other major players in the engineering sector likely to sign MoUs during the two-day investment summit include Mumbai-based Sezal Glass intending to invest around Rs 700 crore for glass making unit, while Tata-group subsidiary, Voltas Ltd is expected to sign an MoU for setting up a new unit for manufacturing of household durables including ACs at an investment of around Rs 150 crore. The unit is believed to come up near Vadodara.
Ahmedabad-based engineering player, AIA Engineering Ltd is expected to invest around Rs 200 crore for setting up a foundry unit around Ahmedabad. Among the big ticket projects, Delhi-based ceramic products maker, Gold Glass has filed a proposal to sign MoU worth Rs 2000 crore for a glass making unit to be set up in Jhaghadia in southern Gujarat.
General Motors and Electrotherm Limited are among those intending to expand their existing facilities in the state. The automobile major, GM will invest around Rs 500 crore towards the expansion of its existing facility located in Halol. According to state government officials, so far as many as 15 foreign companies have evinced interest for investing in the state.
Gujarat has attracted some of the key players in the steel pipes manufacturing. "In 1980s, Gujarat held around 2 per cent of share in India's steel pipes production, while currently the state holds about 10 per cent. The steel pipe industry has an annual turnover of around Rs 3,000 - 4,000 crore and is expected to increase further," said the official. The state has presence of steel pipes makers including Jindal Steel, Welspun, Ratnamani Metals and Essar Steel.
In the last VGGIS that was held in 2009, the state witnessed 115 MoUs valuing worth Rs 45,000 crore. The government officials noted that not a single project from the 115 MoUs have dropped so far and the success ratio of these MoUs getting into implementation has been at around 15%.
