The Hindu : Tamil Nadu / Chennai News : “State receiving more enquiries from overseas firms to set up units”

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Tuesday, Dec 14, 2010
ePaper | Mobile/PDA Version

Tamil Nadu

Tamil Nadu - Chennai

“State receiving more enquiries from overseas firms to set up units”

Special Correspondent

Fresh announcements will be made soon, says Rajeev Ranjan

— Photo: R.Shivaji Rao

Rajeev Ranjan, Principal Secretary, Industries, interacting with Mohanbir Sawhney (left), director, BCT, at a seminar in Chennai on Monday. T.T. Srinivasaraghavan, president, MCCI and S.Durgaprasad, CEO, BCT (right), are in the picture.

CHENNAI: Tamil Nadu has not lost its competitive edge and has received more enquiries from overseas firms on a regular basis for setting up of units. Fresh announcements in this regard would be made soon, said Principal Secretary, Industries, Rajeev Ranjan on Monday.

Referring to a report that Hyundai Motors was eyeing Gujarat for its third plant, Mr. Ranjan said: “It does not make business sense to put all the eggs in one basket. May be, they are looking for opportunities in other States for their third plant after setting up two units in Kancheepuram. They know very well that the State government is fully committed to help the investors.”

Talking to The Hindu, he said that having cleared projects worth about Rs.50,000 crore in the last four-and-a-half years, the State government in the next few months would garner additional investment of Rs.10,000 crore. The officials were getting enquiries from firms in the U.S., France and Japan among others. Delivering the inaugural address at a seminar on ‘Business innovation and engineering excellence' organised by the Madras Chamber of Commerce and Industry (MCCI) and Bahwan Cybertek Group, he said that the attrition level of employees in certain industries were high and at the same time there was also demand for skilled labour. Hence, the State government had announced a scheme recently to provide skill improvement training to 100,000 youth to make them readily employable.

Citing a report, he said that India was all set to become a developed economy by 2013-15 with a readily employable work force of 123 million. In the next five years, India's economy would be comparable to that of China, but a lot of work would have to be done.

Mohanbir Sawhney, director, Bahwan CyberTek (BCT) said “Tamil Nadu is the hot bed for automotive and engineering excellence and emerging markets are becoming hubs for innovation in automobiles and engineering. It is an exciting time for India as talented people are coming back. What China is doing is imitative innovation. So, we have to run faster and faster and be smarter to stay in the same place.”

S. Durgaprasad, Chief Executive of BCT, said that they would deepen their presence in India and scale up their operations in the Far Eastern countries.

T.T. Srinivasaraghavan, president, MCCI, said that innovation took place in India everyday and everywhere far away from science and technology.

Printer friendly page
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

Tamil Nadu