Chennai has capacity to produce three cars every minute, says minister

Chennai:
The city has the capacity to produce three cars every minute and one commercial vehicle every 90 seconds, according to Industries Minister P Thangamani.
Delivering the inaugural address of the 12^th edition of Connect here on Tuesday, the minister said that the city has become the home of seven of the top 20 global majors and has an installed capacity to produce 13.80 lakh cars and 3.61 lakh commercial vehicles every year.
The minister also stated that the state is one of the preferred destination to make investments. “Since May 2011, the state has attracted investments worth Rs 26,625 crore in 17 MoU projects that will generate direct and indirect employment to 1.45 lakh people.
Thangamani also said that additional investments worth Rs 30,000 crore are under various stages of discussion. He said that the state government is confident of attracting Rs one lakh crore of new investments in the manufacturing sector surpassing all records and achievements till now.
He said that Chennai has proven to be one of the largest exporters of software in india with an annual export performance of $8.5 billion in and registered growth of 10 per cent.
He said the state is home to about 1,780 IT companies and there are about 3.75 lakh people directly employed in IT and IT enabled services companies while 7.50 lakh people through indirect employment.
Earlier, the director general of Software Technology Park of India Omkar Rai said that National Policy on Information Technology has set a target of $200 billion IT exports by 2020.
He also said that STPI operation would be totally automated in the next 12 to 14 months.
B Santhanam, chairman, Confederation of Indian Industry southern region and managing director Saint Gobain Glass said that rupee depreciation has made the IT sector attractive.
He also urged the government to set up an institute of robotics and additive manufacturing in Coimbatore besides advanced digital studio in Chennai. He also stressed the need to scale up skill development in the state using information and communication technologies.
Mike Nithavrianakis, deputy high commissioner of British Deputy High Commission said that India’s growth may have been affected but the fundamentals are strong.
S Mahalingam, past chairman CII southern region and former executive director and chief financial officer of Tata Consultancy Services, Narayan Sethuramon, chairman CII Tamil Nadu and managing director and CEO W S Industries also spoke on the occasion.