CHENNAI: Chief minister M K Stalin has concluded his two-week trip to the US with agreements for ₹7,516 crore investments with 17 companies for both expansion of existing operations and establishing greenfield projects.
In an X post on Friday, Stalin said 'Goodbye, USA!', as he left for home after a visit that began on Aug 27. Speaking to TOI, industries minister T R B Rajaa said: "For this trip, there were no investment targets per se. The main target was creating jobs and distributive growth. The CM has been very particular about that and our intention is to get more jobs." The CM, he added, "has been rebranding TN as an investment destination to bring it back to its former glory and this trip shows just how much TN has bounced back. It has taken three long years to get to here."
The team, Rajaa said, focussed constantly on the China plus one pitch. "This is a major story in the US and Europe and already when people think of moving out of China, India comes first and when people think of India, TN comes first," he said. "So we are constantly concentrating on that and focusing on companies looking to move out of China," he added.
The last memorandum of understanding (MoU) the Tamil Nadu govt signed was with RGBSI to set up an advanced electronics and telematics manufacturing unit at Hosur with an investment of ₹100 crore. The company's chairman and chief executive Nanua Singh signed the MoU with govt officials in the presence of Stalin.
Much of the investments promised focused on electronics manufacturing, expansion and setting up of global capability, research and development centres. Among the big names were Applied Materials, Microchip Technology, Nokia, PayPal.
Semiconductor component maker Vishay Precision, auto electronics maker Visteon, and Apple supplier and electronics manufacturing services (EMS) company Jabil signed MoUs for setting up manufacturing plants.
During his visit to San Francisco, Stalin met technology industry executives and invited three major technology firms - Apple,
Google and Microsoft -- to invest in and expand operations in the state. The chief minister also met various industry executives in Chicago.
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