Kerala CM to make major pitch for investment

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM, INDIA: Kerala chief minister Oommen Chandy along with a team of officials will meet diplomats and business honchos in Delhi later this week as part of an exercise to promote the state as an investment destination.

The state government is hosting a three-day global connect event, named "Emerging Kerala", in Kochi in September that will provide investors and policymakers a platform for two-way interaction.

Chandy will meet envoys of over 30 countries as well as representatives of multilateral agencies for discussions April 20.

Besides several central ministers, T.K.A. Nair, advisor to the prime minister, and K M Chandrasekhar, former cabinet secretary and vice chairman of the Kerala State planning Board, will interact with the diplomats.

This will be followed by a meeting with the leading industrialists and business leaders in the evening.

In the run-up to the Kochi event, the state government has lined up a series of interactive sessions, domestic and international road shows, business meets and conclaves to showcase the state's investment potential and business-friendly policies.

Over two dozen sectors such as IT and IT-enabled services, tourism and medical tourism, food and agro processing, ports, shipbuilding and logistics, education and infrastructure development will be showcased at the Emerging Kerala meet.

The mega projects that are going to be showcased include a high speed rail corridor connecting north and south Kerala, Kochi Metro Rail, Thiruvananthapuram mono rail and Kannur international airport.

Emerging Kerala is being organised in partnership with the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) and the National Association of Software and Services Companies (NASSCOM).

"The goal of this branding exercise is to catalyse growth through enabling policies and to facilitate an environment for investment. We need to highlight the fact that Kerala is a very lucrative, investor-friendly destination," said Alkesh Sharma, managing director of the Kerala State Industrial Development Corporation (KSIDC), the nodal agency for the event.

The government has constituted a state-level committee headed by the chief secretary to look into each new project and approve special incentives and concessions.