Anti-investor incidents greet investor meet in Kerala

In a setback to Kerala government's efforts to woo investors, a series of anti-investor friendly incidents took place on the eve of a two-day investor meet being organised by the Kerala Government from Thursday.

Attack on managing director of Muthoot Finance by trade union activists on Tuesday, the national general strike by trade unions turning out to be a total shut down in Kerala on Wednesday and even a Nobel laureate being stranded in a houseboat for more than on hour owing to the protest by trade union activists as part of the general strike.

More embarrassing was the resentment brewing among the business fraternity came out in the open with the Chief Information Officer of Nissan Motors Tony Thomas, who is a Keralite, making a critical post on the social media asking if the investors would swim across the Arabian sea with their tiffin boxes to reach Kerala. He was referring to the total shut down Kerala often witnesses on all general strikes.

The founder Chief Executive Officer of Thiruvananthapuram Technopark, Mr. G Vijaya Raghavan, listed out a series of instances of Kerala missing major investments owing to trade unionism and labour militancy.

"Years ago we had the BMW team come to see if Kerala was a good location for their factory. We had a hartal on that day and the BMW team never came back. Less than a decade ago a very large American company negotiating with a Technopark company for a 3000 seater captive unit lands in Trivandrum on a hartal day and decide that they will give the business to someone else as they cannot take a risk," Mr. Raghavan said on a social media post.

He also flayed that Kerala was losing out in the BPO sector as the investors were not sure of the operating 24X7X365 in Kerala.

Kerala Chief Minister Mr. Pinarayi Vijayan, who inaugurated the global investor meet that showcased 100 odd projects on Thursday, said that Kerala was having a conducive climate for investments and also assured subsidies and ease of doing business.