annual report1-final.qxd - Overseas Indian

Parallel Sessions with States
A delegate asking a question during the parallel session with Bihar state
in Hyderabad on January 8, 2006.
policies in the State. !
PARALLEL SESSIONS WITH STATES
" Andhra Pradesh
The session was chaired by Dr. Y.S.R. Reddy, Chief
Minister, Andhra Pradesh (AP), and was attended
by Dr. J. Geeta Reddy, Minister for Culture and
Tourism, along with officials from AP Tourism, the
State IT department, AP Industries and APInvest.
The session had four presentations.
The first presentation was made by AP Industries
focusing on the theme ‘Come and invest in Andhra
Pradesh’. It stated that AP was a peaceful State
with liberal labour laws and had a ‘proactive
Industrial Investment Policy’ while giving incentives
to investors. AP was fast emerging as a “preferred
destination” for global investors, according
to the presentation. Opportunities for overseas
investors were in various areas like pharmaceuticals,
biotechnology, cement, food & agro processing,
apparel, ethanol and bio-fuels, hardware, miscellaneous
industries, gas-based industries etc. It
was mentioned that AP was strategically located
and it was one of the fastest growing economies in
the country along with a high human development
index.
The presentation highlighted the fact that the
State was predominantly an agrarian state at its
formation and had now emerged as one of the
important industrial and knowledge bases in the
country. AP had a strong local technocrat entrepreneurial
base and was home to a large number of
internationally renowned civil and defence
research laboratories, although the real strength of
AP lied in its strong and diversified manufacturing
base.
AP was the leading manufacturer of cement,
drugs and pharmaceuticals, granite and paper.
Other sectors in which the State was a leader were
shipbuilding, fertilisers, hi-precision machine
tools, power generation equipment, electronic
hardware, long-range missiles, castings and forgings,
defence electronics, steel and ferro alloys,
ceramics, petrochemicals and textiles. It was also
pointed out that the State had a large base for higher
education and was home to 20 reputed universities
with renowned R&D centres.
It further stated that there were three Special
Economic Zones at Visakhapatnam, Kakinada and
Krishnapatnam. ONGC was promoting Kakinada
SEZ as an anchor investor to set up an oil refinery
with a capital outlay of Rs. 7,500 crore. Brandix of
Sri Lanka was promoting an integrated apparel
park at Visakhapatnam, which would provide
employment to about 60,000 women mostly drawn
from BPL families. HPCL would be setting up a
greenfield refinery-cum-petrochemical complex at
Visakhapatnam. It was also mentioned that there
was a provision of clearances at single point
through the Industrial Single Window Clearance
Act.
The second presentation promoted AP as an
important tourist destination. This presentation
gave a global view of the tourism industry, which
was rising by 4.6 percent annually and was contributing
to 10.6 percent of the total GDP, 8.3 percent
of employment and 9.4 percent of capital
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