CII charts growth agenda for south

South india contributes over 25% of India's GDP

‪ To boost further economic growth in the southern states, the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) plans to highlight the high growth areas. For this, the industry body has announced the theme for the year, 'Accelerating growth with conscious competitiveness'.

B Santhanam, chairman, CII-Southern Region, said south India's contribution to the entire GDP stood at a $252 billion, ie, over 25 per cent.

The body’s agenda would be to address infrastructure inadequacy, bridge skill gap, create system for transparent governance, develop competitiveness and ensure inclusive growth.

In terms of competitiveness, it would focus on manufacturing, MSMEs, human resources and sustainability. However, the focus on infrastructure will be on connectivity, power and energy and urban infrastructure. It plans to achieve inclusive growth through skill development and affirmative action.

Santhanam said the MSME sector needed to be more competitive by addressing technology inadequacy through common R&D facilities, testing centres and skill resources shortage through automation.

The CII proposed setting up of a technology development centre for robotics/automation & technology development for addictive manufacturing in two cities of the south.

He said the region would engage with state manufacturing competitiveness council to facilitate growth of the sector, advocate water policy at state levels besides conducting a study on the roadmap for creation of southern gas grid.

Commenting on the power situation in the southern states, he said, Tamil Nadu was slowly coming out of the crisis with a better medium outlook. The real difficulty will be in Andhra Pradesh, which is getting into a period which Tamil Nadu witnessed one year ago.

To promote art and culture, Santhanam said the first edition of the Festival of South India would be organised in Hyderabad in November.