Chennai, March 2 (IANS) The Tamil Nadu government will set up an industrial park for Japanese small and medium enterprises (SME) near here in a bid to attract more investments from the east Asian country to the state.

'We plan to set up an industrial estate, specifically for units from Japan at Oragadam. The industrial estate will be on a 100-acre land targeting the Japanase SME units,' state Industries Department Principal Secretary Rajeev Ranjan said Tuesday.

Ranjan clarified that the industrial park will not be a special economic zone (SEZ). 'It will be an open industrial park but for Japanese companies,' he told IANS on the sidelines of a seminar organised by Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) and Japan External Trade Organisation (JETO), in the state capital.

The Tamil Nadu government had earlier announced plans to start country-specific industrial parks to attract investments from countries like Japan, South Korea, Finland and France.

Earlier addressing the conference, Ranjan cited the growing Japanese investments in the state. 'In Tamil Nadu there are now about 170 Japanese companies, up from 77 in 2008,' he said.

He also said the state government was planning to set up a working group including members of the Japanese Ministry of Economy and Trade and Industry (METI) to study the feasibility and other issues involved in building the Chennai-Bangalore corridor of excellence.

Indo Asian News Service

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