PSU role stressed in AP's economic growth

Cmde Hemant Khatri CMD, Hindustan Shipyard Ltd (HSL) on Wednesday emphasised on the role of PSUs and said that the government is giving lot of emphasis to infrastructure especially shipping industry at Vizag. Vizag is very well connected with marine industry and strategically located and many of the ship building contracts come from Colombo. Majority of the profit is earned through shipping building, and we have built close to 200 ships.

He said there are tremendous opportunities for MSMEs in ship building and repairing. He said "we have got close to 33 per cent business from MSME sector through liberalised tendering processing and participation norms." He also said that HSL procurement is presently Rs 800 crore and may go to Rs1,200 crore. There are phenomenal opportunities in ship building and ship repairing especially from MSMEs.

He was speaking at a webinar on Boosting AP's economy amid the pandemic organised by FICCI Andhra Pradesh State Council in association with Vizag Industrial Scan (VIS).

The objective of the webinar was to look at ways of reviving economic activity in some of the key and strong hold sectors in AP. Some of the key sectors identified for the webinar included -Agriculture & Food Processing, Healthcare, Infrastructure, PSU, Hospitality & Tourism industry.

G Krishna Kumar, VP, Crop, Operations & Sustainability, ITC Ltd during his address analysed the role of agriculture and quoted that close to 27 per cent of GDP is coming from agriculture to Andhra Pradesh.

Andhra Pradesh is the leading exporter of major agriculture products. ITC has its presence in 22 States and has association with AP since 100 years.

Andrew Edlefsen, Principal Commercial officer, US Consulate, Hyderabad elaborated on the bilateral trade and said that the US consulate is extending cooperation to government of AP in key areas.