CHENNAI: Acknowledging that competition between states in attracting investments is healthy, Industries Secretary Vikram Kapur has said Tamil Nadu is taking several steps to boost industrial investment in the state.
He made his remarks in a moderated discussion, titled “Progressive Chennai: Advancing Success in an Evolving Market”, organised by CREDAI, an apex body of private real estate developers, in association with Jones Lang LaSalle, real estate consultants.
Among the proposed measures, as stated by Kapur, are the promotion of sunrise sectors like aerospace and defense, expansion of available land bank besides development of industrial corridors.
“While our strength in sectors such as automobile, textiles, IT is known, the government is looking at sectors such as aerospace. We are about to launch the Aerospace Park in Sriperumbudur. To attract firms, we will participate in the upcoming air show at Bengaluru later this month,” Kapur said.
As far as development of industrial corridors is concerned, he said, “Detailed project report for the Chennai-Bengaluru corridor is being prepared. Another corridor from Chennai -Kanniyakumari is also under consideration.”
With land availability, a constraint in and around Chennai, SIPCOT having allotted more than 20,000 acres out of the 24,000 acres available, Kapur said that they had set up a target of expanding the land pool to 50,000 acres. He also stated that investments of more than Rs 25,000 crore committed during the global investors meet held in 2015 had been realised within a record period of less than two years.
The discussion, divided into three sessions, saw the participation of industry experts and government officials.
Apart from Vikram Kapur, TK Ramachandran, IT Secretary, Rajendra Kumar, Secretary, Youth Welfare & Sports Development, Dharmendra Pratap Yadav, Secretary, Housing & Urban Development took part. Several representatives from industry including Santhanam, Managing Director-Saint Gobain India, were also there.
The discussion was a precursor to the FairPro-2017, South India’s biggest property expo, scheduled for February 10-12 at the Chennai Trade Centre.
In his remarks, Ramesh Nair, CEO and Country Head, JLL, described Chennai’s residential market as ‘resilient’. “Despite challenges like the floods, sales here were down by only 15% as compared to the country wide figure of 25%.
Another key marker has been that sales for the last four quarters have been more than the launches, with 3000 units sold during the last quarter when only 2000 units were launched,” he said, adding that the demand for commercial space remained high.