Kerala expecting huge overseas investment: Chandy

New Delhi, April 20 (IANS) The Kerala government is expecting huge overseas investments in about 60 sectors including infrastructure, technology, education and healthcare, Chief Minister Oommen Chandy said Friday.

"We are expecting huge investment commitments" during the Sep 12-14 "Emerging Kerala 2012" global investor connect meet in Kochi, Chandy said after meeting top diplomats, including ambassadors and high commissioners, heads of trade missions and chiefs of international agencies here.

The chief minister was accompanied by his cabinet colleagues like Industries Minister P.K. Kunhalikutty and officials at the meetings. Chandy said he had met the ambassadors of Canada, China and some Gulf countries to convince them to participate in the Kochi event.

"The meeting with ambassadors, high commissioners of select countries, trade missions and heads of multilateral agencies is the most appropriate forum to flag off such an important event," Chandy said at a news conference here.

Chandy said the government had identified almost 60 areas in which it would attract overseas investments.

The chief minister said his government had also identified core sectors for sustainable development of the state.

These include tourism, IT and IT-enabled services, healthcare, food and agro-processing, ports, ship building and logistics, energy, bio-technology, light engineering and automotive industries.

The government is also giving priority to development infrastructure, including roads, high-speed train, urban infrastructure and industrial parks and corridors.

Chandy said most of the projects will be developed on the public-private partnership (PPP) mode, providing huge business opportunities to both overseas and domestic investors.

Kerala plans to develop the country's first high-speed rail corridor. Almost $20 billion investment will be required for the proposed corridor that will run from Thiruvananthapuram to Mangalore.

The state, which has a 600 km-long coast line, is developing an international container trans-shipment terminal at Kochi. Kerala is also developing natural gas pipeline infrastructure and airports in several cities.

Quoting a World Bank report, Chandy pointed out that Kerala was ranked second in India in terms of ease of doing business. Karnataka is ranked the most business-friendly state in the country.

Industry Minister Kunhalikutty said the state government was "keen to create an enabling environment for investors with proactive policy initiatives."

Kunhalikutty claimed that the state government was taking all possible efforts to facilitate investments.

The three-day event will be organised by the state government in association with the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) and Nasscom.