State bets big on investments

The Siddaramaiah government is set to organise its first global investors' meet – Invest Karnataka - 2016 – from Wednesday with the aim of attracting more than Rs 3 lakh crore worth investments to the State.

The City has decked up for the three-day event,  which expects to host more than 100 industry czars, including Anil Ambani, Ratan Tata and Kumar Mangalam Birla, representatives of top multinational companies and a galaxy of political leaders.

Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley is scheduled to inaugurate the event at the Bangalore Palace. This is the fourth edition of the meet.

The chief minister expressed confidence that the event will double the investments the State has received in the last three years. About Rs 1.50 lakh crore worth of investments have been received since 2013.

Manufacturing, aerospace, automobile and machine tools have been identified as the focus sectors. Seven partner countries — France, Germany, United Kingdom, Italy, Sweden, Japan and Republic of Korea - are sending huge business delegations to the mega event.

The government hopes that the meet will help it to shed its anti-industry image. The State has lost out on many big-ticket investment proposals, including one by Hero Motocorp in Dharwad, in the last two and a half years, mainly on account of slackness in administration. 
 
Besides, e-commerce companies have been grumbling about the taxation policy for quite some time, while several multinational companies like Bosch have been vocal about crumbling infrastructure.

As a result, flow of industrial investment had taken a severe beating.  The government has of late taken a number of new initiatives in ensuring ease of doing business to give a boost to the industry sector.

Doing away with trade licence system and introduction of online system for according various clearances for setting up industries are a few among them.