Davos meet: Had fruitful meetings with Tata Sons, 46 other firms, says M.B. Patil

Industries Minister M.B. Patil on Saturday said he had a 30 minutes interaction with Tata Sons Chairman N. Chandrasekaran at Davos last week, besides bilateral talks with 46 multinational and Indian companies, investors, etc,.

He indicated the discussions were centred around Tata Group’s potential future investments in Karnataka across various sectors, speaking to reporters about the highlights of his recent ministerial delegation visit to World Economic Forum at Davos, Switzerland.

Decades-old investment

”Tata already has significant investments in Karnataka, including decades-old investments and recent investments including in the MRO business. Tata is a highly respected company and we want much more investments from Tata Group in Karnataka,’’ Mr. Patil said.

Talking about other highlights of the visit, he said he had bilateral engagements with 46 global and Indian companies, investors, country leaders and diplomats at the WEF at Davos.

Under 46 different engagements, comprising 25 multinational companies and 15 Indian companies, the delegation met firms that operate in the areas of aerospace and defence, advanced manufacturing, beverages and food processing, space tech, life sciences, data centre and digital infrastructure and clean energy, he said.

No MoUs signed

Responding to media queries Mr. Patil said, “There were only discussions on investment intents but no Memorandum of Understanding were signed at Davos, as planned.”

According to Mr. Patil, the delegation consciously decided not to sign MoUs at Davos because his government wanted global investors to personally visit Karnataka and see for themselves the potential the State has in terms of resources, talent pool, supportive policies and overall positive environment for investment.

46% conversions

Giving an update on business conversions from Global Investors’ Meet held in February last year, Mr. Patil said, GIM had closed with ₹10.27 lakh crore in commitments and an estimated potential for over 6 lakh jobs. “In 11 months itself, we saw 46% conversion as a project move into on-ground investments filings with Karnataka Udyog Mitra and also some 58% of these investments are in the manufacturing sector,’’ he elaborated.

Mr. Patil further said, the State in the last 11 months also secured ₹1.1 lakh crore fresh investments, which were not routed through GIM, across manufacturing, renewables, data centres and GCCs.

“Apart from these, we have a strong near-term pipeline of ₹1.5 lakh crore and these are led by ESDM/semiconductors, auto and RV manufacturing and aerospace and defence manufacturing,” the Minister said, adding that the State has a strong pipeline of ready investments that are coming in.