Wednesday, 10 February 2016

Location draws firms to Sri City

By U Sudhakar Reddy

Its advantage Sri City, the integrated business city situated on the Andhra-Tamil Nadu border, as economic zones in neighbouring states have become congested and AP is offering uninterrupted power supply. Post bifurcation, the power supply to industrial sector has improved in residual AP. This, and the geographical location, has given Sri City, the city that was showcased by Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu during his recent foreign visits to attract investors, an edge.

Multinational giants from Japan, the US and other countries are queuing up at Sri City to set up their manufacturing and assembling plants ranging from automobiles to soft toys to bring in a total investment of around Rs 19,000 crore. In the past five years, 104 companies from 25 countries have set up shop in the Sri City. According to Sri City managing director Ravindra Sannareddy, five more MNCs are expected to start their plants soon, as discussions are in the final stage.

Sri City’s location, on the Golden Quadrila-teral, proximity  to four seaports and two airports, are among the advantages it has to attract foreign investors. Mr Sannareddy said, “Jurong Consultants are the master planners for both the Suzhou Industrial Park in Shanghai and Sri City. They are also working on the Master Plan for the AP capital. What Hosur is to Karnataka, Sri City is to AP, where horizontal growth is being witnessed.”

He added, “Bifurcation has nothing to do with the growth of Sri City. It is the ecosystem that makes it special. After bifurcation, there are no power cuts to industries in AP. Besides, we hope the tax incentives promised by Parliament will attract more companies.”

J. Senthil Kumar of AISAN, a Japanese au-tomobile parts company that became operational in June 2014 in Sri City, says, “Due to geographical advantages our customers Nissan and Toyota have in Sriperambadur, we have dropped the Bengaluru idea and have set up our plant here. Our Japanese team had conducted a research and based on its finding, Sri City was finalised. The location is huge and not congested. Isuzu is also setting up a plant, before this place gets congested.”

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