Hyderabad: Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu said on Monday that an innovation fund of Rs 100 crore was being planned to encourage entrepreneurs. Mr Naidu delivered a keynote speech in Mumbai on Monday and made a PowerPoint presentation at CITI India Investor conference 2015 on the investments opportunities in AP.

Suez Energy International has expressed interest in investing Rs 15,000 crore in different sectors in the state while Sun Pharma has come forward to invest Rs12,000 crore. The Aditya Birla Group has also expressed interest to invest in AP.

In this address, Mr Naidu said AP also has a strong dairy and poultry industry and was a leading producer of cement and paper. He added that the state had a strong presence of textile and metallurgy industry.

“Andhra Pradesh is also the emerging hub for pharma, biotechnology, electronics, chemical and petrochemical industries.”

Later, at a round-table meeting with investors, Mr Naidu said that the government's thrust areas included a life sciences hub, an automobile hub, food processing parks, mineral processing, defence & aerospace hubs, industrial townships, petro-chemical complexes, integrated textiles and apparels parks and establishment of electronic clusters.

He said AP was the first state to have a Single Window Act (2002) and currently, a single-desk mechanism was being streamlined. He said that the maximum time for all clearances was 21 days and the government would make a provision for deemed approvals and exemptions.

The CM said, "We will enable investors to file online applications." He added that the government was also mulling a spot approval system and exemptions for investors proposing investments in certain category of industries from having to seek approvals and assignment of inspection to private technical experts in the private sector.

He said that the state also had sector-specific policies for customized impetus to the thrust sectors.

“The policies formulated are Solar & Wind Policy, IT Policy, Electronics Policy, Innovation and Start-up Policy, Industrial Water Policy and Tourism Policy," he said, adding that Industrial Policy, Public Private Partnership (PPP) Policy, Sector-specific Policies such as Textile & Agro-Processing, Port Policy and Maritime Board Act and Private Universities Bill were on the anvil.

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