The Hindu : Andhra Pradesh News : New body launched to woo investors

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Thursday, Jan 13, 2005

Andhra Pradesh

Andhra Pradesh

New body launched to woo investors

By Our Special Correspondent

HYDERABAD, JAN. 12. The Chief Minister, Y.S. Rajasekhara Reddy, today announced the launch of "AP Invest", a sort of an "investment ombudsman" that seeks to woo entrepreneurs and provide single window clearance facility.

Talking to reporters after inaugurating the fourth edition of GITEX-2005 here, he said that it would be wholly owned by the Government and the State's IT Advisor, C.S. Rao, would be its CEO. Members of the society would visit other states in the country and also abroad to woo industrialists to the State.

He said the thrust areas of AP Invest were IT, ITES, food processing, horticulture, tourism, retail and real estate, education, health, pharmaceuticals, textiles, leather and hi-tech manufacturing.

The body would meet potential entrepreneurs and assure them of the single window clearance and continuous post-investment services. "It will be a sort of an investment ombudsman". He said that it would be a registered society and chaired by the Chief Minister with a steering committee. This would enable the clearances of different departments a lot easier.

Proactive measure

The launch of AP Invest was another "proactive measure" of the Government in bringing industry to the State, he added. He expressed happiness that GITEX this year was better than last year with 90 entries as against 70 in the previous edition.

Replying to a question, he said the Tatas were currently interested in ferro manganese and some sand ores in Visakhapatnam. As of now they were not committed to expansion of steel "though we had offered".

The three-day GITEX-2005 is being organised by the Dubai World Trade Centre and the State Government and the event has attracted several major companies, including Microsoft, Siemens, Benq and Olympus. It has registered a 31 per cent increase in the floor space over last year.

Earlier, Dr. Reddy went around the exhibition, accompanied by the General Manager, DWTC, Ms. Christina Nicholsan.

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