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The Tamil Nadu government has set an ambitious target of attracting investment worth Rs 100,000 crore during the state’s maiden Global Investor Meet (GIM) starting here from May 23.
The state government last week had held the GIM curtain-raiser meet here, which was attended by industry captains. Speaking at the event, Tamil Nadu chief minister O Pannerselvam said the state’s Vision Document 2023 was the blueprint for the government’s development agenda.
Quoting annual survey of Industries for 2012-13, the chief minister said Tamil Nadu has the largest number of factories (around 40,000) in India and the state ranks third in terms of gross value of industrial output.
“Government expects to attract additional concrete investments of at least Rs 1 lakh crore. For all upcoming projects single window clearance would be given within a month. Designated IAS officers would be assigned as escort officers to assist groups of industries in obtaining the clearances,” he said.
CV Sankar, additional chief secretary in the industries department of Tamil Nadu government said since May 2011, the state had been able to attract Rs 31,706 crore worth investments.
Tamil Nadu Industries Minister P Thangamani added the 33 MoUs signed with private companies would generate 162,000 employment opportunities.
He added that companies such as Mahindra & Mahindra, MRF, Renault-Nissan Alliance, CPCL, Lotus Chocolate, Amway India have shown interest to invest in the state.
According to Sankar, Tamil Nadu’s Industrial Policy 1992 paved way for auto industry hub in the state. Companies such as Ford, Hyundai, BMW, Renault-Nissan and others, and in the recent years, Royal Enfield, Apollo Tyres, Michellin, JK Tyres, Yamaha Motors and others had committed new set of investments.
The state has got the capacity to produce 1.3 million units from the facilities of six companies. He noted that for every one minute three cars are being manufactured in the state, whereas for every 92 seconds, one commercial vehicle is being manufactured. After the introduction of Industrial Policy 2003, the state has been getting investment from electronic companies, including Nokia, Flextronics and Foxconn, besides investment from multinational companies like Samsung, Dell and Sanmina.
Thangamani said, “I would like to point out here that Nokia had faced some problems. This is not because of the state government, but because of retrospective taxes, which were imposed on the companies by the previous government at the Centre”.
However, the state is trying to find solutions to this problem to the extent possible.”
Sankar said, during the period May 2011 to November 2014, Tamil Nadu was ranked third next only to Maharashtra and New Delhi when it comes to FDI. Quoting CMIE data he said Tamil Nadu is ranked second next only to Maharashtra in attracting incremental investments during the period April 2011 to December 2014. Between 2000 and 2014, the State attracted $12.7 billion of FDI, which is six per cent of the total FDI flow into the country.
