The Hindu Business Line : CII launches SME `cluster' in Madurai

Bonding for the better
The Madurai Cluster comprises about ten SMEs geographically located in and around Madurai and includes units from castings, bakery products, rubber moulded components, industrial fabrics etc.
The companies will receive in the next 12 months intervention support from the CII in the areas of energy management, manufacturing excellence and total cost management.

Madurai , March 12

The Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) launched the `Madurai SME Cluster ' at its Madural Zonal Annual meeting here.

The cluster approach envisages the voluntary coming together of small and medium enterprise companies (SMEs) to work as a group towards a focused goal with intervention support from CII. The units may belong to a specific industrial sector, a particular geographical location, and a group of companies from vendors of OEM.

The Madurai Cluster comprises about ten SMEs geographically located in and around Madurai and includes units from castings, bakery products, rubber moulded components, industrial fabrics, polyster cord, aluminium pressed sheets, tooling devices etc. These companies will receive in the next 12 months intervention support from the CII in the areas of energy management, manufacturing excellence and total cost management in an effort to enable them enhance their internal competitiveness and ensure sustain the competitive advantage.

The Chairman, CII Tamilnadu State Council, Mr B. Santhanam, before launching the cluster, said five of the CII-sponsored clusters are functioning in the State and with the focus on leveraging competitiveness, 10 companies in the State have internationally scaled up in growth, sale and profit.

Tamil Nadu has emerged as the 3rd largest economy in the country. With the industrial growth rising upto 12% and exports to 15%, the state is in the league of top three States in the country in attracting foreign direct investment, he added.

Delivering the special address on the occasion, the CII Past President and Vice-President, Sanmar Group, Mr. Kumar stressed on the need for the country to think big, given its potential as an emerging economic global super power with huge workforce and consumer base. Its increasing bilateral and multilateral trade negotiations and emergence as a key spokesperson on the WTO platform testifies the position.

In the recent annual meeting of the World Economic Forum held at Davos, discussions figured prominently about India along with China, he noted. Earlier, the Chairman, CII, Madurai Zone, Mr.T. Johnson, said the CII-sponsored traffic study for upgrading Madurai Airport to International Airport and the revival of the commercial operation of the Tutitcorin Airport, has been completed and the report would be submitted in about two weeks.

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