CHENNAI. The south plays an important role in achieving the 5 trillion $ economy dream of our Central Government said C K Ranganathan, Chairman, CII Southern Region & CMD, CavinKare Pvt Ltd at the special plenary session of Mystic South – ‘Together, We Can’: A Dialogue with NextGen CEOs on the Strategic Roadmap towards 2025’ organized by CII Southern Region through a virtual platform on Friday, Sept 25, 2021.
South India has close to 25% of the overall population with a High per capita income, this poses as a great opportunity.
We need to empower academicians and build stronger industry academia partnerships, this will go a long way in achieving our goal he added. He also said that the need of the hour is to change gear slightly and tweak business model rather than wait for corona to leave.
Adeeb Ahamed, Founding Managing Director, Lulu Financial Group said that hospitality sector has high potential in the coming years and can contribute to GDP in a large way. Though Covid had a cascading impact on travel and tourism, it holds potential to enable skilled and unskilled jobs, generate high revenue. As we redevelop this sector, tourism needs to take shape in a clustered manner taking cues from Dubai, New York and Saudi Arabia. India has many Tourism hubs and is well positioned to adopt this model thereby increase investment.
Shruti Shibulal, CEO & Director, Tamara Leisure Experiences Pvt Ltd said the Tourism industry has enormous potential and accounts for 10% of the formal labour. The forecast for leisure sector is high and for travel to similarly thrive infrastructure in connectivity needs to improve. She also pointed out that it is important to address that loss of women in the work force is the permanent loss incurred by the pandemic and we need to ensure they come back.
Arjun Ranga, Managing Director, N Ranga Rao & Sons Pvt Ltd mentioned, “We need to get start up mentality if we need to grow”. Industry 4.0 is a great opportunity for growth and we need to incubate technology and bring it into the country, only then can we achieve the 1.5 trillion economy.
T Sarita Reddy, National Vice Chairwoman, IWN & Managing Director, Gayathri Sugars said that uplifting rural economy and engaging in holistic development, working as one with the villages lays at the core of achieving the set economic goals.
Hari Thiagarajan, Executive Director, Thiagarajar Mills Pvt Ltd said that the textile industry has a lot to contribute to the 1.5 trillion economy and 66% textile capacity of India lied in southern states. The pandemic has resulted in a boom for the industry however there is much to be done in becoming value add rather than just a commodity. ‘’Textile should be seen as a sunrise industry’’ Textiles today is the second largest employment generator after agriculture and is very close to construction sector he added.
