TN equipped to tackle global recession: Palanivel Thiaga Rajan

CHENNAI: “Tamil Nadu will be better buffered and protected when compared to the other states in the event of a global recession,” said Palanivel Thiaga Rajan, Minister for Finance and Human Resource Management.

Speaking at the Tamil Nadu Finance Conclave organised by the Confederation of Indian Industry here on Wednesday, he said “Tamil Nadu is a unique State in many dimensions. Tamil Nadu boasts of over 10,000 more factories compared to other states in India. Further, as a state, the people have a greater purchasing power and is largely a self-contained economy when compared to other states.”

The theme for this year’s conclave was ‘Managing Challenges, Driving Growth’.

“From the fiscal side, the final deficit account stands at 3.38% and is lower by 0.5% laid down by the union government. This year also we are on track to repeat a good performance. On the operational side, Tamil Nadu has jumped to the third position from the 14th position under the ease of doing business category. Our ranking has gone up in the electronics, textile, leather apart from the auto sector in the past 18 months,” he pointed out.

“Tamil Nadu accounts for 15% of all the factories in the country with the maximum number of workers engaged in the industry standing at 2.2 million. We are able to attract $10 billion in investments especially foreign investments in the past 15 months, thereby generating over 2 lakh jobs. This is a 40-45 per cent increase year on year which is a matter of pride,” the finance minister said.

Acknowledging MSME is the backbone of the economy, the FM pointed out the government has multiple initiatives to support MSMEs and assists them by providing access to credit by talking to banks.

“Though Tamil Nadu is above 100% in the credit deposit state, with banks hitting their targets every year, they fall behind in the number of industries to be covered. Realising this, we have stressed banks to make use of advanced technologies like fintech to help them increase the number of clients,” he added.