COVID-19: Khattar says Haryana 'in touch with investors' looking to pull out of China

Haryana Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar on Saturday claimed that nearly 1,000 investors want to take their investments out of China and explore other destinations and said the state has got into touch with some of them.

The Haryana government had recently chalked out an aggressive strategy to woo investors/companies intending to either shift from China or set up new manufacturing facility in India, a state government statement had said here on Monday.

"Coronavirus has spread in the entire world, it started from China, and the investors in China from various countries... (have) made up their mind to explore other destinations," Khattar said Saturday evening in a televised address to the people of the state about COVID-19 situation.

"As per our information, 1,000 investors are those who want to take out their investments from China and go to other countries. We are in touch with them. Through video conferencing, we have talked to some of the investors,”

He said the investors from Japan, America, Korea, Germany, Australia, Taiwan want to come and invest in India. Khattar said Haryana was offering a congenial atmosphere to such investors for investment. “In terms of 'Ease of Doing Business', we were at 16th spot in 2014 and now we are at 3rd position,” he said.

As part of the state government's strategy to woo the investors, Principal Secretary to Chief Minister, Rajesh Khullar, held an open house with potential investors on May 6, 7 and 8 through video conferencing/webinars.

The Haryana government has prepared a strategy to create windows in the existing state policies that would ensure quickly setting up manufacturing facilities in any industrial estate of the choice of investors wanting to shift base from China, the statement had said.

Earlier in the day, Khattar held a webinar with more than 100 representatives of MSMEs.

The chief minister said he had assured them that the state government was with them in this hour of crisis, as the COVID-19 situation had in particular dealt a blow to the MSME sector.

Many labourers get employment in this sector, he said, adding with economic activities restarting amid lockdown, nearly 3 lakh workers are working now in this sector.

“We want our industry to flourish,” he said. “After MSME, If I talk of big industries, companies like Maruti Suzuki, Honda, Samsung, Escorts Group, Jindal Steel Industry, Liberty and other companies have played their role in state's progress,” he said.

He said that Karnal and Kurukshetra were famous for rice belt, Panipat for its handloom industry, Jind and Panchkula for hatchery industry, Yamunanagar for plywood industry, Karnal and Bahadurgarh for footwear industry.

“They are Haryana's pride and we want these to move ahead and flourish,” he said.