Bengal businesses show interest in Telangana

Kolkata, Oct 16 : Bengal business houses have shown interest in investing in Telangana and a city-based business group has signed an MoU with the state in packaged food segment, a Telangana minister said on Monday.

"We have met several business houses, staring with Emami, to discuss a number of potential business opportunities. We met R.P.-Sanjiv Goenka group and entered into an MoU with them for a specific expansion plan for packaged food," state Industries and Commerce Minister K.T. Rama Rao said here.

He said his state's officials also met other Kolkata-based business houses like Srei Group and had one-on-one meetings with Keventer Agro, Titagarh Wagons, mjunction and others.

"With Emami, we discussed for cement plants, bio-fuel (businesses), FMCG but these are all discussions. Srei Group has significant investments in the state. Keventer looks for a food testing lab and we are keen to get that in our state.

"Today (Monday), we have met the business groups here and tried to understand their expansion plans. We are also trying to position ourselves and not trying to takeaway anything which rightfully belongs to Bengal. We have fruitful meetings and looking forward for more," he added.

The state has two lakh acres of land with the Telangana State Industrial Investment Corporation (TSIIC) for industrial usage, he said during the roadshow organised here by CII.

"In the last three years of our existence, we have been able to attract top companies. Top five technology companies -- Apple, Google, Microsoft, Facebook and Amazon -- have their offices in the state. These offices are the largest offices outside their headquarters in the US and these are cutting edge R&D centres, not KPOs or BPOs," he said.

Telangana introduced its industrial policy two years ago and since then the state has cleared more than 4,400 units and attracted nearly Rs 80,000 crore of investments and aceout of which, more than half is in the commercial production stage, he said.

According to the minister, the IT exports was at Rs 87,000 crore in the last year growing at about 13 per cent and 4.5 employees were directly working in the sector.

He said the state has generated a direct employment of 2.3 lakhs in the industries while in IT, the employment grew by 1.5 lakh to 4.5 lakh.

The government is also setting up a 350,000 sq ft space to incubate start-ups (T-hub Phase 2), he said, adding that the state planned to set up a dry port near Hyderabad in public-private partnership mode.

A Global Entrepreneurship Summit will be held in Hyderabad in November, he added.