Andhra Pradesh will focus on attracting investment in post-based industries like green hydrogen and pumped storage power generation from renewable sources in its maiden global investor summit to be held this Friday and Saturday, Chief Minister YS Jagan Mohan Reddy said on Wednesday.
The chief minister told PTI that top industrialists N Chandrasekaran, Mukesh Ambani, Kumar Mangalam Birla and Sajjan Jindal among others have confirmed participation at the forthcoming global investor summit.
The state government is organising its maiden global investor summit in its proposed administrative capital Vishakapattnam this Friday and Saturday.
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Karan Adani of the Adani group, Naveen Jindal of the Jindal group, Sanjiv Bajaj of the Bajaj group, Puneet Dalmia of the Dalmia Bharat group, Sumant Sinha of Renew Power, GM Rao of the GMR group, Hari Mohan Bangur if Shree Cements, Preetha Reddy of Apollo Hospitals, N Srinivasan of India Cements and Dilip Shanghvi of Sun Pharma among others have also confirmed attendance at the event, the chief minister said.
Union ministers Nitin Gadkari, Piyush Goyal and Sarbanand Sonowal will also be attending the summit. Some representatives from the global electric car Major Tesla are also confirmed their participation, he added.
Reddy said the focus of the global investor summit will be ports-based industries like green hydrogen, pumped storage power generation from water wind and solar where the state has a natural capacity to produce 33 GW of power.
The state, which has been topping the Centre’s ease of doing business index ranking for the past three years in the fort is rolling out the red carpet to investors offering them all permissions in flat 21 days failing which permissions are deemed granted.
Reddy is assuring prospective investors the fastest single-window clearances, usable coastlines which are the second largest in the country at 974 km, multiple seaports, quality power supply, abundant land bank, and modern infrastructure.
Andhra, which contributes 8 per cent of national exports, is home to a diversified portfolio of industries such as automobiles, chemicals, aerospace, defence, pharma, textiles etc), and world-class infrastructure in seaports roads, startups and tourism.
He also said while the state has six operational ports it is also building three more ports and an investment of around Rs 4,000 crore each.
From a macro point of view, the state logged in the highest GSDP growth of 11.43 per cent among all states in FY22 and is slated to grow over 7 per cent this fiscal. As of last fiscal, the state with a population of over 5.5 crore also leads the per capita income chart with USD3,800.
Reddy said 89 large projects are under active implementation with a total investment of Rs 2.2 lakh crore, with the potential to create 20,000 jobs. The state is also home to the largest number of industrial nods (ten under various stages of development) along three of the 12 national industrial corridors, which is also the highest in the country.
From a ready to move in perspective for an industrialist the state offers 48000 acres of nearly developed industrial land bank and five to seven years of tax waivers/refunds, the chief minister said, adding the state is also home to 530 industrial estates, 293 industrial parks, 31 MSME parks, six special economic zones, three information technology SEZs.
All this makes Andhra a competitive investment destination on the East Coast, Reddy said.
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When asked about what is the investor commitments he expects from the summit he said he doesn’t want to offer a headline grabbing number given the fact that the summit is yet to conclude. Also I don’t want to do what my counter parts on other states are doing for a headline, he said when pointed out that the best conversion rate among states has been only under 8 percent.
It can be noted that various states have been holding global investor summits and claiming to have sewed up investments worth billions of dollars. At the recently held one such summit in Lucknow, the UP administration has claimed to have inked investment MoUs worth over Rs 33.5 lakh crore, while Karnataka’s held in November, had claimed close to Rs 10 lakh crore of investment commitments.
Maharashtra and Gujarat, which lead in industrialisation and foreign direct investments, have not held their summits since the pandemic. Many analysts say the vast majority of such MoUs die naturally as the average conversion of such commitments into actual investments is only in the high single-digit across the states.
Reddy said he looks at the summit from a different angle which is to tell investors that they mean something to the state because there is a limit beyond which I can’t legally offer them more sops than other states offer. The summit is a public acknowledgement of my way of admiring their contributions to the state as well as publicly affirming our continued support for their commitment to the state.
The reporter was in Vijayawada on an invitation from the chief minister.
Source: PTI
