Tamil Nadu will bring Rs 5 lakh crore investment by 2017, says K Pandiarajan

Chennai: Maintaining that one-third of the total investments of 2.40 lakh crore pledged during the 2015 Global Investors Meet have been actualized, school education minister ‘MaFoi’ K. Pandiarajan on Monday said Tamil Nadu would achieve in brining Rs 5 lakh crore worth investments by this year-end, a feat that took Gujarat five years to achieve.

While Rs 2.40 lakh crore was pledged during the first edition of the GIM in 2015, the remaining 2.60 lakh crore worth of investments would be attracted in the second edition of the GIM scheduled to be held in September this year.

“We will have global investors' meet in September. We have started working to make it a big success. We will achieve this year itself what Gujarat did in five years bringing Rs 5 lakh crore of foreign investment,” Pandiarajan told India Today south conclave here.

He noted that Gujarat took five years and five “Vibrant Gujarat” Summits to attract Rs 5 lakh crore. Pandiarajan said all 98 projects signed during the GIM 2015 are “still alive” and every project is still being “mapped and tracked.”

“None of the projects has been lost as yet. We have achieved the target and now we are working towards achieving another target during this year's GIM,” he said.

Responding to a question, the minister said Tamil Nadu is as pro-entrepreneurship as any other state in the country and “serious course correction” needs to be done on the way people look at those from South India.
“We are a lot more diverse than many think and we are lot of entrepreneurial than others think,” he said.