Hyderabad-based companies keen to explore investment opportunities in Odisha

Bhubaneswar/Hyderabad: In the run-up to the Make in Odisha Conclave 2018, the Odisha government on Thursday organized an investors’ meet in Hyderabad to showcase the inherent advantages of investing in Odisha.

The state government delegation led by Industries secretary Sanjeev Chopra met 24 Hyderabad-based companies to attract investments to Odisha.

During the meetings with investors, the strategic advantages of Odisha were highlighted such as the low cost of doing business, incentives for investors, dedicated sector-specific clusters and over 1, 21,000 acres of land bank available for industrial development.

The investors meet witnessed encouraging response with 24 leading companies meeting the delegation and exploring attractive growth opportunities across Odisha’s focus sectors – food processing and seafood, ancillary and downstream industries in the metals sector, textiles, ESDM manufacturing, chemicals, plastics and petrochemicals.

“We are pleased to receive an encouraging response from the business community of Hyderabad. Odisha’s investor-friendly policies and the development of world-class infrastructure have received very positive feedback from investors across the country as we have been able to create an ideal business ecosystem for various sectors to flourish in the state,” said Chopra.

“We have seen a significant rise in attracting manufacturing projects with more than 118 large projects approved with an employment potential of 1,28,572 in the past 4 years alone in the State,” he added.

Chopra said the average time taken for approval of the projects is also reduced to 20 days from the date of receipt of the completed project application.

Odisha has also made significant strides in implementing the ease of doing business reforms with the compliance percentage going up significantly from 52.12% in 2015 to 97.83% in 2017.

“We are positive about attracting significant investments from Hyderabad-based companies in the near future,” said the industries secretary.

Notably, the delegation also participated in a roadshow jointly organized with Indian Oil Corporation Limited in Hyderabad on Wednesday where the strategic advantages and opportunities for manufacturing plastics at Paradip Plastics Park were showcased.

The investors were apprised of competitive incentives, availability of land, skilled talent and online single window approval. The details of on-ground developments at Paradip Plastics Park were presented. The roadshow was attended by more than 50 entrepreneurs and investors from the industry.

Multiple Hyderabad-based companies have invested in Odisha in the recent past. Bharat Biotech’s vaccine manufacturing unit is coming up at Bhubaneswar. The groundbreaking for the unit was conducted in November last year. Toshali Cements, a multinational company based in Hyderabad recently inaugurated its 3.86 lakh MT per annum cement manufacturing plant at Choudwar in Cuttack district. Toshali

Cements has two cement plants operational in Odisha including the one in Koraput. Multiple Hyderabad-based leading healthcare providers have either established or are expanding operations in Odisha such as Apollo Hospitals, CARE Hospitals, LV Prasad Eye Institute and Sunshine Hospitals.

The State delegation invited companies from Hyderabad to participate in the second edition of the biennial Make in Odisha Conclave 2018 which has been scheduled to be held in Bhubaneswar from November 11-15, 2018.