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Puneet Dhawan of Accor is brimming with ideas on ways to revive the hospitality sector
Prominent city-based business groups have evinced interest to invest in Telangana, the State’s Commerce and Industry Minister KT Rama Rao has said.
The RP Sanjiv Goenka Group has signed a memorandum of understanding to set up a packaged food unit there, he said here without specifying details.
When contacted, the RP Sanjiv Goenka Group refused to elaborate.
Fruitful meetings
According to Rao, other business groups with whom discussions have taken place include Emami, Srei, Keventer Agro, among others.
“We are hopeful of placing Telangana as the next best destination for Kolkata-based companies looking to expand,” he told reporters during a road show on ‘Make in Telangana’ organised by the CII.
Discussions with Keventer Agro were on the possibility of having a food testing laboratory while the Emami Group discussed the opportunities in cement and biofuel businesses.
Apart from food processing and manufacturing sectors, the Telangana government will also focus on drawing investments in sectors such as mining, IT, electronics manufacturing, automobiles, textiles and apparel, among others.
Investment potential
Since the State was formed in 2014, Telangana has been able to draw investments to the tune of over ₹80,000 crore.
It has generated 230,000 jobs in the manufacturing sector and 150,000 in IT. Global tech majors such as Google, Facebook, Amazon, Microsoft and Apple have already set up ‘cutting edge’ R&D centres there.
Manufacturing majors present there or about to set up shop there include Mahindra and Mahindra, and Ashok Leyland among others.
Apart from Hyderabad, other tier-2 cities such as Warangal are being developed.
The government is also setting up a 350,000 sq ft space to incubate start-ups (T-hub Phase 2), which is expected to be operational next year.
Plans are also afoot to set up a dry port to overcome the problems of being a landlocked State.
The dry port will come up on a public-private-partnership and an expression of interest has already been floated, Rao said.
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