Karnataka accounts for around 5% of India’s national income and the State has been ranked No. 1 by the World Bank for its investment climate in a study that analysed 16 States using 46 investment parameters. The fact that one new MNC invests in the State every week is testimony for the fact that Karnataka is the leading investment destination in the country. One of the fastest-growing states in the country, Karnataka has a strong industrial base and vibrant tertiarry sector. It’s services sector, has in fact been, the engine of growth.

The reasons that make Karnataka an attractive destination for investors are:

• Excellent infrastructure
• Readily available land
• Highly skilled technical manpower base
• Large number of technical and research institutes
• Techonology savvy work force with proficiency in English
• Cultural diversity and cosmopolitan urban centres
• Advanced healthcare facilities
• Connectivity through air, rail, sea and road network integrated
• with the rest of the world
• A State with effective law and order
• Liberalised economy with single window clearance for investors
• Excellent logistics support
• Abundant primary resources

Home to 700 MNCs and 87 Fortune 500 companies, Karnataka is a State with varied agricultural and mineral resources, and strong manufacturing capabilities.

Karnataka is one of India’s leading industrial states, contributing almost 8% to the national manufacturing income. It has a long tradition of supporting entrepreneurs, and encouraging innovation and research. Its strong and vibrant industrial base combines the intrinsic strengths of large industrial public sector undertakings, large and medium privately owned industries, a wide range of small-scale units. While at one end of the spectrum, the State is the aerospace hub of the country operating on cutting-edge engineering and IT capabilities, on the other end, its garment sector, dominated by small units, contributes 20% to the national output.

Karnataka is also the State with an impressive number of education and skill-development institutes and organisations – it has one of the highest number of medical colleges, third-highest number of engineering colleges, highest number of Industrial Training Institutes in the country and is home to several premier research institutes of international repute.

The State is the pioneer and global face for India in Aerospace and Biotech. Brand Bangalore has become synonymous with cost-effective and quality solutions. While at the beginning, this represented off-shoring of low-end services in the BPO sector, the latent strengths of the State has now made it the first-stop destination for cutting-edge research and manufacturing centres.

Bangalore is the world’s fourth-largest technology cluster as it has the perfect ecosystem fostering growth and development of state-of-the-art technology. The city is also well known on the global medical map as one with many super-speciality hospitals providing excellent international quality health care.

The Karnataka State Government has strived to provide an investor-friendly responsive administration. The Karnataka Udyog Mitra, set up more than a decade ago, works as single contact point for all investors – from receiving a proposal to ensuring its implementation. KUM is actively working with the investors at all stages. The State Level Single Window Clearance Committee and the State High Level Clearance Committee (for investments more than Rs. 50 crore) have been working to clear proposals in a hassle-free manner.