China’s CETC plans to set up USD50-mn solar PV plant in AP

Hyderabad: CETC Renewable Energy Technology Company, a part of China Electronics Technology Group (CETG), is setting up a mega solar manufacturing plant at Sri City in Chittoor district, Andhra Pradesh. Towards this, the Chinese company has signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with Andhra Pradesh Economic Development Board (APEDB) in New Delhi, according to a release from APEDB. 

CETC will invest $50 million in a solar PVC manufacturing park. The state-of- the-art solar manufacturing park sprawling across around 18 acres in Sri City. The new plant will create 300 jobs in the first phase and about 1,500 total jobs will be created later. The AP government may get $8 million in taxes annually once the project is completed.

J Krishna Kishore, CEO at APEDB and Xin Xiao, Director, CETC Renewable Energy Technology Company, signed the MoU on Wednesday on the sidelines of a curtain raiser ceremony of CII Partnership Summit to be hosted in Vishakhapatnam in February. Suresh Prabhu, Union Minister for Commerce and Industries, was also present on the occasion.

Kishore said: “CETC finds synergies in investing in Andhra Pradesh as the state is embarking on a next phase of industrialization, Andhra Pradesh is poised to catalyze investments in electronics manufacturing owing to robust infrastructure for connectivity, enabling policies, integration with global value chains and a skilled and ready workforce.”

Andhra Pradesh commands 20 per cent of India’s electronics and hardware and is poised to reach a market share of 50 per cent by 2020, according to the release.

Beijing-headquartered CETC is a Fortune Global-500 company and includes 18 national key laboratories, 10 national research and innovation centers. The largest electronic conglomerate in China has a workforce of 1,50,000 employees.

This investment was facilitated by the Andhra Pradesh Economic Development Board, a single point of contact for trade, investments and partnerships in the state of Andhra Pradesh who have been elevating the status of partnerships with China, Taiwan, South Korea and Japan sustainably to attract manufacturers to Make in Andhra Pradesh.

Focus on innovation and networked excellence, scalable partnerships and a robust investment climate makes Andhra Pradesh a preferred destination for electronics and hardware manufacturing. Last year the Union Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology has approved the State government’s proposal to set up a Greenfield Electronics Manufacturing Cluster (EMC) in Chittoor district, which is India’s first electronics cluster. 

The Chief Minister of Andhra Pradesh N Chandrababu Naidu has allotted 113.27 acres of land for the new cluster and the cluster is expected to be Rs104 cr industry and create around 50,000 jobs a year.