West Bengal continues to be an attractive destination for investors despite land acquisition problem as it attracted investment proposals worth Rs 5,77,904 crore out of Rs 1,04,93,601 crore announced throughout the country as on September 2010, according to a report by Associated Chambers of Commerce and Industry of India (ASSOCHAM),
The state's share works out to be 3.7 per cent in total investment undertaken by various government sources in the country. In case of private investment, its share was 6.7 per cent. Seventy three per cent of total investment announced in the state is coming from the private sector.
While releasing the findings of the study, Assocham president Dilip Modi said, "West Bengal is a well established, matured economy. The tradeoff between equity and efficiency issues has affected growth of economy in the past. The state has the potential to achieve double digit growth rate by exploiting complementarities between its social and economic strengths."
Modi added that the leadership in the state was successful for its balancing act of preserving the prominence of traditional sector while promoting sunrise segments. It has come out with a strategy of using public investment exclusively for development of primary sector and private investment for industry and services sectors.
In line with this strategy, state needed to restrict itself to the role of regulation while the private sector developed and managed the industry and services sectors, he added.
During April – September '10, the state has attracted new investments worth Rs 50.4 thousand crore. Manufacturing sector has got the major share (39.3 percent) in total live investment. This was followed by electricity (33.5 percent), services (20.2 percent) and real estate (5.5 percent).
Regarding implementation status of these investment projects, about fifty per cent of these investments are in different stages of implementation and 48.3 percent of live investments are in the announcement stage. Implementation of projects involving 1.5 percent of total investment is stalled due to various reasons.
