Introduction
Sunny days for growth Partnering the Tamil Nadu government in organising the hugely successful Global Investors Meet (GIM) in November 2015, CII is riding the momentum to fuel its vision of sustainable growth.
The Tamil Nadu government, led by Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa, organised a spectacularly effective Global Investors Meet in November 2015. The CII partnered the state government in this event and is looking forward to the next Global Investors Meet in 2017.
R
amesh Kymal, Chairman, CII - Tamil Nadu & Chairman, Gamesa Wind Turbines, expounds on the dramatic improvement in the availability of power, the focus on heritage and medical tourism, the impetus being given to skill-generation and on envisaging the 2017 edition of the GIM. Q: What does CII aim to achieve in this region? A: Our vision is to fuel sustainable growth - that is the Tamil Nadu CII’s theme for this year. Our focus areas will be skill development and entrepreneurship, sustainable infrastructure development, sustainable manufacturing, sustainable energy, and nurturing heritage and local ecology. The textiles, leather and manufacturing sectors have been the traditional growth drivers of Tamil Nadu. However, the contribution of the IT/ITES sector to the state’s GDP has been steadily increasing from 2009-10, and now this sector contributes more than 60 percent of the total GDP. IT exports from the state have been growing at a CAGR of 18 percent over the last six years. In comparison, the manufacturing sector contributes 24 percent to the GDP and has been growing at a rate of eight percent. With the recent focus on ‘Make in India’, as also the increasing competition from states like Gujarat and Maharashtra, what are the measures being taken by Tamil Nadu to boost the manufacturing sector? What more needs to be done? What has been the CII’s role in encouraging this sector? Tamil Nadu was very strong in the industrial sector from Day One and is becoming stronger; I am talking about the last 15 years or so. There are other sectors like the textile sector and automobile sector, which have been strong based on factors like the entrepreneurial nature of people of Tamil Nadu plus the fact that there are big automobile and
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Best of Chennai Vol 2
ancillary industries in and around Chennai, Madurai and Coimbatore, especially the foundry and forge units. CII is making sure that ease of doing business is improved further, that we truly encourage the single-window concept which has been implemented. There was a bit of a crisis with the power situation a couple of years ago but since then, a lot has been done to ease this, including seeing to transmission and availability of power, whether it is self-generation or buying from outside the state, to ensure that power cuts are not there. Today, industries do not have to suffer from power cuts and are able to perform competitively. CII is pushing for even better power availability. CII is going down to the grassroots to ensure that skill development percolates down to the lowest level, because employability, not just educational qualifications, is very important. To further encourage the manufacturing sector, especially the engineering sector, CII supports industries that have started adopting colleges and ITIs for in-house training and skill development of students. Apart from that, CII has Centres of Excellence which impart specialised training in logistics, quality control, renewable energy and other sectors. For example, CII is involved in improving logistics and inventory control and processes in the Tirupur textile cluster, and the participating industries have benefitted immensely. Some of them have benefitted up to the tune of `2 crore (US $300,000 approximately) from these Centres of Excellence. It has become a kind of movement in Tirupur and now they are more confident of reaching the `1 lakh crore (US $15 billion approximately) export target that they had set for themselves. About 60 percent of the state’s industrial production is concentrated within 150 km of Chennai. What measures are needed to ensure the spread of industrialisation beyond the capital? Have the CII’s