Chennai, May 14, 2019: “To accelerate the growth of Southern States, CII has been working closely with State Governments in bringing sector specific policies to promote manufacturing in Southern States. High employment and export oriented sectors are critical for contributing to the growth of the State.” said Mr Sanjay Jayavarthanavelu, the newly elected Chairman of CII Southern Region. He also said that CII is working to propagate the Model State Budget in select States to encourage state specific action and promote fiscal discipline
Outlining CII-SR’s priorities for 2019-20 to Media, Mr Sanjay said that the CII Southern Region has chosen ’Competitiveness of South India Inc. India@75: Forging Ahead’ as its theme.
Policy Advocacy, Ease of Doing Business, Education & Skill development, Entrepreneurship, Start-ups, MSMEs and Membership engagement will be the key focus areas under the theme.
He said that, this year, the focus would be more on membership engagement and expanding business linkages by engaging the international community. Besides this, more thrust would be given to Advisory Services on IPR, Capacity building programs for MSMEs and creating B2B platforms for major initiatives.
For the benefit of Women and Young Leaders, focused leadership initiatives impacting over 4000 people would be rolled out through the Indian Women Network and Young Indians.
As a part of Employment Generation and Livelihood Creation, the major engagement would be Skill Gap Study is the labour intensive areas and to facilitate industry centric skill policy in Southern States.The Model Career Centre in Chennai provides career counselling, skill training, and assessment thereby facilitating employment for unemployed youth. Over 12000 candidates are to be placed through MCC, Job fair in Tier II cities in this year, said Mr Jayavardhanavelu.
Through the CII Southern Region Entrepreneur Awards, CII-SR has been recognizing successful startups, and entrepreneurs in the region every year. This year, CII SR will aim to get maximum nominations from tier II cities, especially from the first generation entrepreneurs and women.
Under the CII-SR Water Alliance initiative, CII is working with State Governments and industry in rejuvenation of lakes and water bodies in Southern States. This initiative will be rolled out this year under phase II of the program.
Through the CSR Gateway, over 1000 stakeholders ranging from corporates, NGOs and other CSR related entities have been connected in the online portal exploring opportunities on CSR projects. We aim to add many more this year.
With an aim to support small farmers in Southern States, CII has launched crop specific initiatives. A Millet Task Force set up earlier had helped Millet cultivation and promotion in Southern States.
He also mentioned that CII is also working with Southern State Governments for the Startup Policy as South India has the rich ecosystem to nurture startup companies and emerging entrepreneurs.
Mr Sathish Raman, Regional Director, CII Southern Region also participated in the press meet.
