TN attracted Rs 30,512 cr investment in 2008-09, says Stalin

CHENNAI: One of the "favoured investment destinations" in the country, Tamil Nadu had attracted Rs 30,512 crore worth industrial investment in 2008-09, bettering the target of Rs 30,000 crore, Deputy Chief Minister M K Stalin said here today.

Dedicating the Cheyyar Special Economic Zone, located inside the Cheyyar SIPCOT Industrial Park near here, he said this was possible due to 19 additional industrial investments in the year. The state had so far attracted Rs 37,595 crore of investment since the DMK government came to power in May 2006, he claimed.

"The state stands third in developing SEZs and industrially backward areas are being indetified for setting up production units," he said.

Among the major players to have set up shop in the Cheyyar SEZ is footwear manufacturer Nike, which has invested Rs 164 crore out of the committed Rs 300 crore for which it signed an MoU with the state government in 2006, an official press release said.

So far 3000 persons have been employed there with 85 per cent of them locals, it said.

Besides Nike, eight other manufacturing units are coming up on nearly 90 acres out of the total of 275-acre SEZ on an investment of Rs 355 crore, the release added.