White Paper Soon on Davos Summit Visits: Sridhar Babu

Hyderabad: The state government will issue a White Paper on Telangana’s visits to the World Economic Forum summits at Davos, IT and industries minister D. Sridhar Babu announced in the Legislative Assembly on Thursday.

The minister’s announcement came during the Question Hour during his replies to queries on the achievements of the Congress government and investments in the state arising from visits of state delegations to the last two summits at Davos. Sridhar Babu said at the 2024 WEF, the state entered into 18 MoUs, and understandings with a proposed investment of Rs 40,232 crore and in 2025, these numbers stood at 26 agreements with an expected investment of Rs 1,78,950 crore.

Responding to questions on the delays in translation of the agreements into actual investments, Sridhar Babu said the employment potential from the proposed investments was at 68,150 jobs. “What follows is due diligence by the industries department that goes into the nitty gritty of the proposed investments, and only after all details are worked out between the investors and the governments, do the projects move to the next step of being grounded,” he said.

Rejecting the contention of failures in turning the proposals into investments, Sridhar Babu said even Maharashtra says that the actual translation from business proposals at Davos translates into 30 to 35 per cent of such agreements turning into actual investments.

He also clarified that governments from Telangana in the past too had gone to the WEF to attract investments to the state, and said such visits were part of the exercise to give exposure to investment opportunities in Telangana. He said the government was committed to extending industrial investments to Tier II and Tier III cities and the MSME policy of the state was aimed at achieving this goal.

One of the challenges in the IT sector was to retain employees in Tier II and III cities as after gaining experience, workers from such cities were finding other employment in Hyderabad and moving from their previous jobs. The government will provide another 3 year extension from rents for IT companies in smaller cities to help them stabilize their businesses, he said, adding that the government was alive to the needs of the industry and was taking all possible steps to assist them.

Infograph

WEF Davos data

Year – MoUs – Proposed investment

2024 – 18 – Rs 40,232 cr

2025 – 26 – Rs 1,78,950 cr

6 companies given land, committed investment Rs 81,800 cr

Land identified for 3 companies with a proposed investment of Rs 30,000 cr