2007 : An Investor-friendly year for Tamil Nadu

Chennai, Dec 25 (UNI) With a firm commitment to take the state on the path of industrial growth, the Tamil Nadu Government signed as many as 14 MoUs with companies in 2007 involving an investment potential of Rs 70,000 crore and employment generation of over two lakh jobs.

Major investment into the state came from companies for creation of infrastructure and housing to the industries such as automobile, eletronics and IT companies to set up their base.

The biggest investment came from UAE based Ras Al Khaimah Authority at Rs 20,000 crore for two projects to create an IT SEZ and International Feeder Township at Coimbatore on 1,000 acres and 'Kadalur Marina Project' in Kadalur proposed to create water sports, leisure, entertainment, high end residential and world class golf course on 500 acres of land.

Other major companies including German-based BMW, Digital storage major Moser Baer and Steel Major Jindal groups' JSW Steel have also invested in the state to the tune of more than Rs 10,000 crores.

Investments of about Rs 9,000 crore alone were made in the Sriperumbudur-Oragadam region near Chennai.

These investments would come from the vendors of Nokia (Rs 3,300 crore) and Flextronics (Rs 2,500 crore) and commitments from industries in the two Special Economic Zones promoted by the State Government, SIPCOT Sriperumbudur Hi-Tech SEZ (Rs 1,976 crore) and SIPCOT Oragadam Hi-Tech SEZ (Rs 1,300 crore).

This was in addition to the Rs 650-crore investment of Nokia, Rs 450-crore of Flextronics and Rs 270 crore of Dell.

Including the 'mother units', total investments of close to Rs 11,000 crore were made in the region.

A New Industrial Policy 2007 was unveiled by the state government with the objective of making Tamil Nadu the favoured destination for investors, creating twenty lakh additional jobs by 2011, double the state's annual exports to Rs 1,40,000 crores, apart from a slew of initiatives to take Tamil Nadu further on the path of growth.

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