The Hindu Business Line : Assocham moots `Singapore Corridor' near Chennai

COLLECTIVE INITIATIVE: Mr Venugopal N Dhoot (left), President, Assocham, and Mr D.S. Rawat, Secretary-General, at a press conference in Chennai on Sunday. -- Bijoy Ghosh

Chennai June 17 Assocham today said that it had prepared a case for setting up a `Singapore Corridor' near Chennai - an industrial estate where light engineering companies from Singapore would set up manufacturing facilities.

The Chamber intends to present its paper on the subject to the Tamil Nadu Chief Minister, Mr M. Karunanidhi, according to Mr Venugopal Dhoot, President of Assocham.

Mr Dhoot is likely to meet the Chief Minister on Thursday or Friday.

Assocham, after sending a study team to Singapore, has found out that the cost arbitrage that Chennai would offer to companies in the island nation is enough to attract investments of about Rs 15,000 crore.

It may be recalled that the concept of a `Singapore corridor' (also called Madras Industrial Park) was a hot topic in the mid-90s, but the project, which was to come up at Sholinganallur near Chennai, never happened.

Mr Dhoot also said that while Tamil Nadu was doing fine in economic development, it was "lagging behind" in execution of SEZs.

He added that the State ought to be able to implement nine SEZs in the first half of the current fiscal.

The companies that are putting up the SEZs are Flextronics, TCS, Syntel International EtI Infrastructure, Hexaware Technologies, Sriram Properties, Coimbatore Hitech and DLF Infocity.

The export receipts from these would be about Rs 7,900 crore.

Over Rs 7,000 crore of investments would come into these SEZs, against Rs 772 crore invested in them so far.

They would provide employment to over 1.7 lakh people, he said.

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