The Hindu : Business : Smaller States offer better investment scope

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Tuesday, Jun 14, 2005

Business

Business

Smaller States offer better investment scope

Special Correspondent

They have fine-tuned their economic policies

NEW DELHI: Smaller states of Uttaranchal, Himachal, Chattisgarh, Jharkhand, and even Jammu and Kashmir appear all set henceforth to emerge preferred destinations for investment for overseas and domestic investors because of opportunity cost that these states offer in terms of incentives, holiday schemes and availability of raw materials.

Recording this finding, an Associated Chambers of Commerce and Industry of India (Assocham) study says that the epicentre of investments in these states will be mining, iron and steel, power, thermal and hydro, extraction of coal bed methane, oil and gas, pharmaceuticals, electronics, organic food, food processing industry, watch assembly, IT park and infrastructure.

Releasing the chamber's assessment, its President. Mahendra K. Sanghi, said the evaluation was based on enquiries that it had been receiving from the prospective investors about the prospects of future investments in the smaller states for the last six months to explore investment opportunities in them.

Majority of the companies are of the opinion that in smaller states, setting up of manufacturing base will be far easier with low land cost and lesser bureaucratic hassles besides other reasons, said Mr. Sanghi.

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