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J. Nanda Gopal

HYDERABAD, Nov. 7

THE investment climate in Andhra Pradesh is still `hazy' despite the best efforts of the Government to make it industry-friendly. No new investments have been committed significantly in the last one year even though the Chief Minister, Mr N. Chandrababu Naidu, and his team of ministers and officers tried hard to market Andhra Pradesh in other parts of the country and abroad as an investment destination.

The underlying reason for this situation is the slow pace of infrastructure growth which is the basic requisite for attracting investors. Though the Government has ambitious plans for development as charted in its Vision 2020 document, it is banking mostly on private investments, domestic as well as foreign, flooding the State in different sectors to achieve a quantum jump towards its goal.

It has limited its role to that of a facilitator and expects the private sector to have an easy ride and produce results to internationally enviable standards.

While the State's contribution to infrastructure development is a fraction, the private sector, for reasons of its own, appears to have shunned the role allotted to it. There is a good deal of uncertainty, according to Mr T.S. Appa Rao, Commissioner of Industries.

Mr Appa Rao told Business Line that for inexplicable reasons two international companies which wanted to set up huge petro-chemical complexes costing nearly Rs 65,000 crore in the State last year remained silent not indicating whether they had backed out or would enter the scene sometime later.

Videocon, Infosys and some FMCG companies began their operations. There were, of course, some proposals for joint ventures and they were being worked out.

He said that some Chinese companies had evinced interest in investment, but they wanted specific benefits and policy changes which could not be effected. However, exports from the State had registered a 15 per cent growth.

Asked whether the single-window clearance for entrepreneurs had not caused a spurt in investments, he said it was meant to save time and check avoidable hassles. It was a facility which had to be made use of, he said.

Matters such as employment generation depended on the setting up and expansion of industries which again was dependent on infrastructure development, he added.

In the agricultural sector, a foreign company, KRAFT, had set up a unit in Medak district under the name, KJS India Private Ltd, to manufacture a ready-to-mix flavoured food concentrate named Tang (like Rasna powder), he said.

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