A lot riding on upcoming Tamil Nadu, Gujarat investor meets

Tamil Nadu and Gujarat being both able to attract large doses of investment would be one of the best things to happen for India.

As far as business summit contests go, there can be no better spectacle than what we are about to witness in January 2024. Two of India’s most industrially advanced states – Tamil Nadu and Gujarat – run by parties with widely divergent political views are going head-to-head against each other. Their  back-to-back global investor meets will try to prove who has the more superior business-friendly credentials in a year when Lok Sabha elections are also due.

While the Tamil Nadu Global Investors Meet - 2024 is scheduled for January 7-8, the Vibrant Gujarat Global Summit - 2024 is slated for January 10-12. Both these high-profile events share many similarities in terms of their areas of focus and the programme format, besides being able to boast of the presence of some of the biggest names of domestic and international business.

Elections And Investor Summits

It would be fair to assume that the urge to come out trumps in MoU signings – always the most important parameter through which most Indian states measure their success at business meets – and, also, make more ambitious policy announcements would be particularly strong this year for both Tamil Nadu and Gujarat.

Since whichever state manages to do better than the other in eliciting mega investment pledges and glowing endorsements of their potential by top industry leaders at their respectively organised business galas would provide the political parties running the governments in these regions with one extra talking point ahead of the general elections.

Business conclaves organised by state governments, after all, have rarely been just about economics. Politics has always been an integral part of such programmes, with the ruling party in a state never failing to factor in the likely political gains that they can derive from successfully conducting a business summit.

This political quotient associated with a business gathering goes up several notches in a year when Lok Sabha polls are also to be held. Businesspersons who attend such summits, too, are familiar with how these programmes play out and are rarely caught by surprise when the MoUs they sign with different states turn into subject matters of heated political discussions.

Politics And The Larger Good

The political stakes would be higher this time for DMK-led Tamil Nadu as the state, with the country’s second-highest GDP, would be greatly interested in showcasing that being led by a party that is not the same as the one leading the Central government, is no handicap in being able to continually attract large investments from both domestic and international companies.

Besides the fact that, ideally, Tamil Nadu would also like to send out the message to the electorate everywhere that a state doesn't necessarily lose out on its industrial edge and, by extension, ability to give its residents an improved quality of life if it doesn't have the same party governing it as the one at the Centre.

Incidentally, Tamil Nadu is the only one among the top 3 Indian states with the highest GDP (the others being Maharashtra and Gujarat) where a party in opposition to the BJP is running the government. Tamil Nadu has set itself a target to nearly treble the size of its economy to $1 trillion.

Seen from a larger country perspective, though, Tamil Nadu and Gujarat being both able to attract large doses of investment would be one of the best things to happen for India. From leading to the creation of more and better-quality jobs for India’s ever-growing workforce to strengthening the ecosystem for renewables, electric vehicles, and AI nationwide, success achieved by these two states in securing investment pledges of a high order at their respective business summits can also go a long way in fast-tracking the realization of India’s stated goal of becoming one of the world’s top 3 economies.

Sumali Moitra is a current affairs commentator. Twitter: @sumalimoitra. Views are personal, and do not represent the stand of this publication.