Globally reputed business research and consulting firm Frost & Sullivan (F&S) on Thursday unveiled its investment roadmap for Odisha.
A high-level team of F&S led by its director (Asia-Pacific) Digbijoy Chakraborty called on the state Chief Secretary B K Patnaik to discuss the modalities of the proposal.
The roadmap includes master plan development on Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs), investment promotion to attract global investors to the state and formulating existing industry revitalization roadmap strategies for the state. Other key areas to be addressed are assessment of pro-enterprise orientation of government agencies, tourism development in the state and solid waste management.
“F&S has given a presentation on investment roadmap for the state. The roadmap essentially focuses on the role of the MSME (micro, small & medium enterprises) sector in the state and efforts needed to catalyze the sector,” said Patnaik.
For pulling global investors to Odisha, F&S would help open doors to marquee investors through a comprehensive campaign to secure investments from leading companies to the state through a combination of roadshows, overseas events, matchmaking sessions and facilitation of signing of Memorandum of Understanding (MoU).
F&S will leverage its global network, extensive client relationships and experience of conducting similar exercises for organizations such as Seoul Metropolitan Group, UK Trade and Investment, Invest Northern Ireland and Invest in Finland to deliver success in the state.
It may be noted, Odisha had emerged as the numero uno state in attracting investors across sectors. The state had drawn investments to the tune of Rs 13.66 lakh crore till January 2012, according to latest data collated by Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion (DIPP) under Government of India.
In order to fuel growth of the employment intensive MSME sector, F&S intends to focus on development of industry clusters like agro and food processing, aluminium, petroleum by products, fisheries, supply chain, solar panels and biotechnology.
Moreover, it would formulate a comprehensive strategic plan that would nurture select industries. This would involve identifying opportunity areas, assessing capacity gaps and issues hampering local industry, global benchmarking, vision development, strategic option formulation and detailed strategic action plan formulation with targets.
F&S believes its coverage of several industries and extensive experience of pubic sector consulting will be the key to its formulation of strategies for Odisha. The consulting firm has done similar exercise for a range of industries such as solid waste, media and arts, information technology, tourism and biotechnology for public sector clients in Singapore, Malaysia, South Korea, Russia and Brazil.
Besides investment promotion, F&S is keen to assess the government regulatory bodies in the state in terms of their pro-enterprise ranking measured across parameters like cost of compliance, customer responsiveness, transparency and review of rules.
