Bright Future For Manufacturers

Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) president Arun Bharat Ram wants Andhra Pradesh to look beyond information technology industry and feels that the manufacturing sector, particularly automobile, pharmacueticals and food processing , also have good potential in the state.

Bharat Ram's statement assumes relevance since Andhra Pradesh and the CII have a strategic alliance with the latter assuming the role of marketing the state for investments.

Responding to a question why the state failed to attract investment in greenfield units of over Rs 100 crore investment in the past four years, Bharat Ram said the state still had many problems including infrastructure.

 

The industry will come to Andhra Pradesh, once these problems are tackled. He did not elaborate further on that.

The vice chairman of the state chapter of CII, D V Manohar said the single window system did not come up to the expectations and that CII had no representation in the State Investment Promotion Board (SIPB). However, on suggestion of the state government to study the system, he said CII had entrusted the job to Price waterhouseCoopers.

CII president, in a presentation, said there was no conflict between the old and new economy and that the cha-llenge before the nation was to transform old economy into a new knowledge driven economy.

He said a false dichotomy was being created especially in the Indian context as if only new economy matters, while the old gets consigned to history .

He also said linking old economy with the new economy through e-commerce holds an immense potential of $1 trillion (about one fourth of national GDP).

In terms of jobs it would be 2.8 lakh in the next two years and 11 lakh by 2008.