Bhubaneswar/Mumbai: State Industries, MSME and Energy Minister Dibya Shankar Mishra Monday said that the chemicals and petrochemicals are one of the major priority areas of Odisha government. Mishra said this while addressing a two-day summit on Global Chemicals and Petrochemicals Manufacturing Hubs in India held at Mumbai Monday.
The event was inaugurated by D V Sadananda Gowda, Union Minister of Chemicals and Fertilizers, Government of India. Mishra and Mekapati Goutham Reddy, Minister for Industries, Commerce, Information Technology, Government of Andhra Pradesh, have attended the as speakers.
Mishra said investment in petrochemicals will help in furthering common good and bringing profound impact in the lives of the poor and downtrodden, bringing about a qualitative change in their lives. He stated that Odisha enjoyed a stable political environment, zero tolerance to corruption, low operation cost and a scam-free single window scheme and is an ideal destination for investment.
Mishra said the state has huge natural resources and 500 km of coastline, and it wants to tap it.
“Odisha has huge natural resources and 500 kms of coastline, we want to cash on this. Last year we attracted an investment of Rs 2 lakh crore, of which Rs 15 lakh crore has been grounded. Overseas investors from Singapore, China showed interest in investing in the state. Chinese companies have invested in setting up shoe manufacturing units in the state. We are targeting Rs 1 trillion investment into the state by 2025,” he added.
Odisha has water, land and energy in abundance and urged investors to invest in the state which has single clearance windows for ease of doing business, he said.
“We have six focus sectors, including electronics manufacturing, petroleum, chemicals and etrochemicals, textiles, tourism and downstream to metal and food processing. We want to scale up the investments and make the state the petrochemicals hub,” he added.
Meanwhile, speaking at the event, Reliance Industries Executive Director Nikhil Meswani said there is a need to remove a few anomalies that are affecting the sector to provide a level playing field to the domestic industry.
“Removal of the anomalies in this sector will be a key to a new facilitative policy regime. Several taxes such as cess, levies on power, electricity duty and tax paid on fuel, do not get a rebate in GST. We need to rebate them to provide a level playing field to the domestic industry,” he said.
Meswani further said that such a move will make sure that the high factor cost of India are addressed in a WTO compatible regime.
“Our tariff structure needs to be comparable to China and the US across the board,” he added.