Tamil Nadu delegation attracts $4 billion investment

SINGAPORE: Indian state of Tamil Nadu has locked in about USD 4 billion of foreign investments of the USD 16 billion target set for the Global Investor's Meet (GIM) to be held later this year in Chennai.

"We have already tied up about USD 4 billion worth of investments of the USD 16 billion target from business visits to Japan, South Korea and Singapore," C V Sankar, additional chief secretary in the industries department of Tamil Nadu, said here yesterday.

Sankar led a delegation of the state's investment and GIM promotion officials to Japan, South Korea and Singapore.

The delegation has held a series of meetings with public and private sector officials in the three countries over the last 10-days promoting GIM, to be held from May 23-24 this year, and investment opportunities in Tamil Nadu, he said.

Yesterday, some 120 Singapore businessmen attended a seminar on business opportunities in Tamil Nadu which was organised by the International Enterprise Singapore, a trade promotion agency.

"The response from the first three countries visited has been uniformly good. We have had discussions with the government officials in Japan, South Korea and Singapore," Sankar said.

"We have also held discussions with state-owned trade promotion agencies as well as major corporations in the three countries. One-to-one discussions were held with several corporations," he said.

Today, the delegation is in Malaysia for similar round of meetings and would wrap up the four-country visit tomorrow.