CHENNAI: Tamil Nadu has secured investment commitments worth Rs 7,020 crore during Chief Minister M K Stalin’s visit to Germany as part of his week-long trip to Europe, bolstering the state’s push to position itself as India’s manufacturing and R&D hub.
At the TN Investment Conclave in Germany, 23 memorandums of understanding (MoUs) were signed with firms for Rs 3,819 crore investment in projects that are expected to generate 9,070 jobs.
Combined with three marquee deals announced earlier Rs 2,000 crore from Knorr-Bremse, Rs 1,000 crore from Nordex Group, and Rs 201 crore from ebm-papst — the total MoUs signed in Germany stand at 26 with potential to generate 15,300 jobs.
Several of the commitments came from existing investors. BASF, Herrenknecht and Witzenmann India all signed up for new capacity addition, highlighting what state officials described as confidence in TN’s “industrial ecosystem” and stable policy environment.
After German tour, Stalin to meet investors, Tamil diaspora in UK
Among the larger announcements, Vensys Energy will invest `1,068 crore in a new wind components facility, creating over 5,200 jobs. BASF’s environmental catalyst and metal solutions arm will expand its Chengalpattu operations.
Poland-based Bella Premier Happy Hygiene committed Rs 300 crore to expand its sanitary and medical products plant in Dindigul. Herrenknecht, the world leader in tunnel boring machines, will enlarge its Chennai facility to serve metro and coastal road projects.
Other investors include Puls, a German power supply specialist; Witzenmann, a maker of flexible metal hoses and joints for the auto sector; and MASH Energy, a renewable fuels company.
In a parallel development, Guidance Tamil Nadu signed a pact with Next Mittelstand to introduce Germany’s dual vocational training model in the state. The programme, which will begin with 120 students and scale up to 20,000 in 10 years, aims to raise workforce skill levels to global standards.
During his visit to Germany, Stalin also met Hendrik Wüst, Minister-President of North Rhine-Westphalia (NRW), and outlined Tamil Nadu’s economic performance under the Dravidian Model. “I shared my wish for the great companies in NRW to explore the opportunities in our state. I also extended a cordial invitation for him to visit Tamil Nadu,” the CM said in a social media post.
He described his visit to Classic Remise Düsseldorf as “a journey back in time. Coming from Chennai, often dubbed India’s Detroit, to Germany with its legacy of automobile innovation, the CM said he had the “rare joy” of viewing the world’s first car alongside a celebrated race car. Surrounded by vintage vehicles, Stalin wrote, it felt like “an eternal dialogue between past genius and future imagination.”
The German leg of Stalin’s European tour will be followed by investor meetings and diaspora engagements in the United Kingdom.