Business / Tamil Nadu CM invites Amazon CEO Bezos, Apple CEO Cook to invest in state

Chennai: Having decided to convert the COVID-19 crisis into an opportunity to garner investments from abroad, Tamil Nadu Chief Minister Edappadi K Palaniswami has reached out to global business giants like Apple, Amazon, and Samsung asking them to set up outlets in the state by offering “customized incentive packages”.

Palaniswami has written to CEOs of 13 business giants like Amazon’s Jeff Bezos, Tim Cook of Apple, Samsung CEO Kim Hyun Suk, and HP’s Enrique Lores. The state expects several technology giants, who have their units in China, to move out of the country due to the COVID-19 crisis and set their shops in India.

Since India is expected to be the favourite destination for firms moving out of China, sources said, the Tamil Nadu government wants to woo the technology companies to come to the state and build their manufacturing facilities.

“We feel firms that manufacture electronic items like smartphones, computers and laptops would be the first to move out of China. And that is the reason, those at the helm decided to first woo those companies and negotiate with them with the motive to bring them to Tamil Nadu,” a top source in the government told DH.

The letters outline the investment attractiveness and inherent advantages of the state of Tamil Nadu and offers excellent support for “business and industry to further their growth and promises a customized incentive package as per their requirement,” an official release said.

The source added that the letter mentions about the land bank that the state government possess and Chennai’s “excellent” accessibility to the sea which has three ports in and around the city.

“When companies want to come to India, we want them to land in Tamil Nadu. We have been the leaders in attracting maximum FDI that comes into the country and we want to continue to house more industries in the state. We have one of the best infrastructure in the country and all these points are part of the letter,” the source added.

The state government has already constituted a high-powered committee headed by Chief Secretary K Shanmugham to garner investments from firms that are planning to shift out of “certain countries” due to the pandemic. Palaniswami’s letter to the heads of global companies come at a time the state government, even in the midst of the Covid-19 pandemic, signed MoUs with 17 companies worth over Rs 15,000 crore for setting up their units in the state.

One of the leading destinations for Foreign Direct Investments (FDI) into the country, the state has attracted USD 29,848 million in FDI from April 2000 to March 2019. According to figures released by the government, Tamil Nadu had retained its position by attracting USD 2,613 million during 2018-19. It is also the third largest exporter of goods in the country.