Firms, investors vow $80 bn investments at Tamil Nadu summit 

The two-day Tamil Nadu Global Investors Meet 2024 that concluded on Monday received investment pledges worth close to $80 billion, with the potential to create almost 2.7 million direct and indirect jobs, chief minister M.K. Stalin said.

“Due to our tireless efforts and your participation, we have attracted ₹6.64 trillion ($79.9 billion) of investments. A total of 2.69 million jobs are expected to be generated from these investments, and this includes direct employment for 1.45 million,” Stalin said on Monday. 

The earlier editions of the summit in 2015 and 2019 had received investment pledges of ₹2.42 trillion and ₹3 trillion, respectively. 

In the department-wise breakup of the investments, Stalin said industries, investment promotion, and commerce received about $45.7 billion. 

Energy, housing and urban development, IT and digital services, and small and medium enterprises cornered $16.26 billion, $7.57 billion, $2.66 billion, and $7.64 billion, respectively. 

Driven by big-ticket investments from Tata and Adani groups, the state’s green energy sector received a big chunk of the investments. 

The biggest pledge came from Tata Power, which announced a 10-gigawatt solar and wind project worth $8.42 billion, which includes $7.22 billion fresh investment. The memorandum of understanding for the investment to be made for five-seven years was signed on Monday. 

“TN has good wind and solar potential, favorable policies, and talent,” Praveer Sinha, chief executive officer and managing director of Tata Power, said. 

Another big investment that was announced was from Adani Group, which signed three deals, pledging about $4.96 billion, including $421 million for three cement grinding units in the next three years. 

Singapore’s Sembcorp Industries signed a deal for a $4.36 billion investment in renewable energy. Coimbatore-headquartered Leap Green Energy committed about $2.1 billion in renewable storage in the state. American solar tech giant First Solar announced to increase its existing $700 million investment to nearly $1 billion. 

Korean automaker Hyundai announced plans to pump in an additional $722 million investment in addition to the $2.41 billion it had decided to invest to build new product lines and machinery in the state. 

Earlier on Sunday, Vietnamese electric vehicle maker VinFast signed a deal with the state government to invest ₹16,000 crore ($1.92 billion) for a manufacturing facility in Thoothukudi district. 

Tata Electronics committed to invest ₹12,080 crore ($1.45 billion) to build an Apple mobile phone assembly unit, while Pegatron, another Apple supplier, said it would invest up to ₹1,000 crore ($120 million) to expand production at its existing facility.

Speaking at the summit on Sunday, JSW Group chairman Sajjan Jindal said his company planned to double the investments made in Tamil Nadu across sectors over the next few years. The group has a total investment of ₹15,000 crore ($1.8 billion) in the state. 

Inaugurating the summit on Sunday, Stalin released a report on ‘Tamil Nadu Vision for $1 Trillion Economy’, providing a comprehensive “growth framework” to achieve the target by 2030. The report has been prepared by global management consulting BCG, the state’s knowledge partner.