AP has sufficient infrastructure for industrial growth: CM

Hyderabad, Feb 5 (UNI) Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister Y S Rajasekhara Reddy today called upon industry players to invest in the state as it had sufficient infrastructure for industrial growth.

Inaugurating the two-day India Semi-conductor Association (ISA) Vision Summit 2007 here, the Chief Minister said the state would emerge as the Semi-conductor industry capital of the country.

Describing the state as the best in the country for Fab Industry, he said the Centre would soon announce the Fab policy. The state had talented manpower and was producing 19,000 engineers every year, he added.

Claiming that the state had abundant water resources, Mr Reddy said the government had planned to produce 7,000 mw of additional power to meet the industrial needs in two to three years.

Dr Reddy said the International Airport would be ready by April 2008.

Union Minister of State for Defence M M Pallam Raju said Indian economy was growing rapidly.

He said with the growing middle class population, India's electronic equipment consumption which was estimated at around 28.2 billion US dollar in 2005 was expected to cross 363 billion US dollar by 2015 growing at a compound annual growth rate.

ISA Chairman Rajendra Kumar Khare said Vision Summit was one of the premier business conferences for the semiconductor industry in the region.

He said the two-day conference provides a platform for business analysts, leaders and top management of the semi-conductor industry to exchange ideas and perspective.

ISA President Poornima Shenoy said Vision Summit 2007, based on the theme of 'Global Competitiveness - India as a key player in the electronics eco-system', would bring together industry and global business leaders from leading semi-conductor organisations of India and the world.

She said ISA had around 120 members spanning Indian and global semi-conductor design, test, manufacturing industries and was the national body for the Indian semi-conductor industry.

She said nearly 300 delegates from eight countries were attending the conference.

UNI