Tamil Nadu parties spar over South Korean firm MoU with A.P.

The CII Partnership Summit, in which several multi-national companies and domestic investors inked Memoranda of Understanding with the Andhra Pradesh government, raked up a political storm in the neighbouring Tamil Nadu. The BJP and the ruling DMK got into a verbal exchange on social media over a South Korean company announcing its plans to invest in A.P. The same firm had earlier held negotiations with the Tamil Nadu government to invest there.

The South Korean global conglomerate Hwaseung proposed an investment of $150 million in non-leather shoe manufacturing in A.P. The firm had in August signed an MoU with Tamil Nadu government for setting up its plant there but had decided to shift its base to Kuppam, the home constituency of Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu.

A day after the MoU was signed, BJP TN unit vice-president K. Annamalai posted on X: “While TN CM Thiru @mkstalin avl and his Industries Minister are in deep slumber, the investments that they proudly announced are moving to neighbouring States. The TN Industries Minister announced that the South Korean company Hwaseung has committed an investment of ₹1,720 crore to establish a large-scale non-leather footwear manufacturing facility, which will generate 20,000 direct jobs.”

Mr. Annamalai further said that in less than three months, Hwaseung decided to take this investment to Andhra Pradesh. “At a time when other States are moving swiftly to attract global manufacturing, Tamil Nadu is losing ground due to complacency and administrative apathy. From being a land of opportunities, DMK has transformed TN into a land of missed opportunities,” he said.

Responding to Mr. Annamalai, Minister for Industries of Tamil Nadu T.R.B. Rajaa said investment promotion is not an everyday game. “It’s about balancing the State’s need for certain sectors, the jobs that will get created, incentives being given according to the area in which the investment is anchored, etc. Our Chief Minister Thiru @mkstalin and his aim for Distributed Growth is where our heart lies. Hence incentives and grounding of investments depends heavily on where one is willing to set shop,” he posted on.

Mr. Rajaa further said that across India and abroad, governments play to their strengths and needs of the population. While some governments have the luxury of huge tracts of arid lands others have high value land that can’t be casually given away without gauging the outcome of the incentives vis-à-vis value of jobs being created. “We will also at no point join a race to the bottom when it comes to offering unrealistic packages. TN is focused on specific value of #JobsForTN at different areas based on the availability of different types of skills of our labour,” he said.

Mr. Rajaa, however, expressed optimism that more investments will come to TN. “While some proxies of the opposition want to belittle the hardworking govt. and it’s officers who put interest of Tamil Nadu first and insult the hardworking people of the State, we choose to shut their venomous mouths with announcements of More Investments. Coming soon,” he said using hashtag #InvestInTN.

A similar political heat was generated in Karnataka when Google announced establishing a AI Data centre in Visakhapatam, with Opposition parties criticising the Congress government there of losing out to Andhra Pradesh. Similarly, a political storm kicked off in Karnataka when Minister for IT Nara Lokesh invited the aerospace industry to the State after Karnataka government went back on land allotment following protests by farmers there.