In a bid to ramp up industrial investments and provide a thriving environment for enterprises, the State Government has readied more than 100 credible projects that will be showcased to potential investors at the upcoming ASCEND 2020 Global Investors’ Meet.
Organised by Department of Industries, the event will be held on January 9 and 10 at Lulu Bolgatty International Convention Centre, Bolgatty Island, Kochi.
The big-ticket projects — a minimum of 60 projects from Industries Department and 40 from other government departments/agencies — will be presented before the prospective investors. These projects span diverse sectors ranging from infrastructure, petrochemicals, defence and agro and food processing to electronic hardware, tourism & hospitality, port & harbour and aerotropolis.
Other sectors
The other sectors in which attractive projects have been formulated are life sciences, fisheries and mobility transport, said Industries Minister E.P. Jayarajan.
The Government has initiated new policies and procedures to make the ‘Ease of Doing Business’ easier, tweaked the industrial policy, revised the land assignment rules and introduced electronic platform for hassle-free interactions with the investors, industrialists and entrepreneurs, he said.
“Kerala is witnessing a paradigm shift for harnessing industrial investments in the State. It now ranks second among Indian states in the World Bank’s Investment Climate Index. We will aggressively pitch project profiles and the recent amendments to industrial licensing procedures at ASCEND 2020 to position Kerala as a hotspot for attracting investments from India and abroad, he added.
Among the major projects are Phase III of Kochi Metro Rail Project for extending the metro rail from Aluva to Angamaly with airport connectivity and Operation, Management & Development of Trivandrum International Airport through Public Private Partnership (PPP), he said.
Also proposed is a petrochemical park exclusively for the petrochemical downstream industry in the FACT (Fertilisers and Chemicals Travancore) premises at Ambalamugal, which is expecting investments in the field of automobile industry, plastic industry, pharmaceuticals, textiles and consumer durables.
Hardware park
Another ambitious project is the electronics hardware park, which is proposed to be set up on 100 acres of land in Amballur with KSIDC as the nodal agency. The State would foray into defence sector in a big way by setting up Kinfra defence park.
The other big projects that could attract investments include a ₹434 crore tourism and trade city in Kannur, a bio 360 life sciences park in the State capital and an aerotropolis comprising an airport city core and clusters of aviation-linked businesses and a cryogenic warehouse in Puthuvypeen for perishable goods like vegetables, meat and fish.
The projects in transport sector include a semi high speed rail corridor called Silver Line connecting Thiruvananthapuram to Kasaragod with 10 stations, and phase II of Vyttila Mobility Hub (VMH), the Minister added.
