Karnataka hopes to attract 20 per cent of investment envisaged from the Global Investors' Meet 2012 from the MSME (micro small and medium enterprises) sector.

Speaking on the sidelines of GIM 2012, the Minister for Large and Medium Industries, Mr Murugesh R. Nirani, said the government hopes to attract investments to the tune of Rs 6 lakh crore. “Of this, we expect 60 per cent to be realised over the next five years,” he added.

Sectoral expectations

The Minister said investment would come from sectors such as power, infrastructure, information technology and biotechnology, and aerospace.

“We also expect 11-12 sugar factories to come up in the Mysore-Mandya region,” said Mr Nirani. He said at least 20 per cent of investments will come from the small and medium enterprises.

Mr M.N. Vidya Shankar, principal secretary, Industries and commerce department, told reporters that about 8,000 units have expressed interest in investing in the State and few existing units are going in for expansion.

This edition of GIM has got investments covering 13 sectors. But major ones are for setting up new units related to plastics, packaging, machine tools, medical equipment, precession engineering, aerospace and few in pharmaceuticals,” he added.

Regional break-up

Of the investment flow across the State, Bangalore has got commitments of Rs 5,000 crore, Mysore received the highest of around Rs 12,000 crore, Hubli-Dharwar Rs 4,000 crore, Dakshina Kannada (Mangalore region) Rs 1,000 crore and Belgaum Rs 2,000 crore.

This year the State government's initiative of engaging district chambers of commerce has paid dividends. The department used the services of Kassia, BCIC, CII, FKCCI in Bangalore and Mysore Chamber of commerce and Industry, Karnatak Chamber of Commerce and Industry, Belgaum Chamber of commerce and Industry, Kanara Chamber of commerce and North Karnataka small scale industries Association for organising the GIM as well as getting investments.

Mr M Maheswar Rao, commissioner Industries and commerce department said “During our interactions with MSME sector in the state, many units had issues related to Karnataka Industries area development Board and Karnataka small scale industries Development Corporation.”

“Through this exercise, we were able to address some of their long standing demands, encouraged them to invest. This facilitated our transaction cost of reaching them come down,” he added.

GIM EXPO

Speaking after inaugurating GIM 2012 Expo, Karnataka chief minister, Mr D V Sadananda Gowda said “After partial success of GIM 2010, we are hosting the event in much bigger scale. This year investment avenues in plethora of avenues have been offered for investors.”

This year's GIM Expo is spread over 20,000 square meters and has more than 600 exhibitors representing private sector, PSUs, large and MSME companies.

Some of the key participants at the GIM are JSW group, Honda Motorcycles, Grasim Industries, Ultratech Cements, Suzlon, GAIL, Zuari Cements, Shahi Exports, SBI, Tata Motors, Allahabad Bank, IOB, Toyota Motors, L&T, Mangalore Refinery and Petro Chemicals Ltd, IOC, Mangalore SEZ, IDBI in addition to research and development organisations.

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