Envoys of nine nations impressed with investment potential, facilities in southern districts

Guidance Tamil Nadu’s initiative of organising a visit for Consul Generals of select European and Asian countries and Australia to showcase the investment potential in southern districts likely to yield good results as the visiting diplomats showed interest in bringing investors from their countries

Guidance Tamil Nadu’s initiative of organising a visit for Consul Generals of select European and Asian countries and Australia to showcase the investment potential in southern districts likely to yield good results as the visiting diplomats showed interest in bringing investors from their countries.

Guidance Tamil Nadu, the nodal agency for investment promotion and single window facilitator that played a key role during the Global Investors’ Meet in January, brought a team of Consuls of France, the U.K., Australia, Denmark, Japan, South Korea, Thailand, Singapore, and Malaysia, to showcase the investment potential of southern Tamil Nadu and its rich culture.

“In fact, we’d planned to organise visits of Consuls and the investors to southern Tamil Nadu ahead of the GIM to exhibit our potential, particularly infrastructure, connectivity, highly skilled human resources, availability of large tracts of land, uninterrupted quality power supply and sufficient water, to attract industrial investments in an unprecedented manner. It did not happen then due to paucity of time. So, started organising these trips to southern Tamil Nadu,” said V. Vishnu, Chief Executive Officer, Guidance Tamil Nadu.

After visiting Meenakshi Sundareswarar Temple in Madurai and Keezhadi archaeological site on Wednesday, the first batch of the Consuls visited on Thursday V.O.C. Port, Thoothukudi, and a unit in SIPCOT, Thoothukudi, which makes artificial flowers for global markets. They were pleased with Thoothukudi as investment destination in view of its road, rail, sea, and air connectivity and vast tract of unused lands within 25 km from the city.

Most of the envoys, including British Deputy High Commissioner, Chennai, Oliver Ballhatchet, French Consul-General Lise Talbot Barre, Singapore Consul-General Edgar Pang, Consul-General of Japan Takahashi Mitsuyo, and Consul-General of Denmark Eske Bo Rosenberg, were keen on exploring the possibility of investing in non-polluting energy sector such as green hydrogen, offshore windmills, green ammonia, and so on in Thoothukudi.

Consul-General of the Republic of Korea Chang-nyun Kim promised to bring investors from South Korea to southern Tamil Nadu. “It may happen after October,” Mr. Chang said during his interaction with The Hindu on Thursday.

While speaking on Malaysia’s investment proposals in southern Tamil Nadu, Consul-General of Malaysia K. Saravanakumar, having his ancestral roots in Madurai, said the oil industry investment proposals of Petronos, Malaysia’s State-owned multinational oil and gas major, in Thoothukudi was taking a final shape as it had proposed to have its green hydrogen and green ammonia plant near V.O.C. Port. “We will explore more investment possibilities in this region,” he said.