Kerala- The New Emerging destination for Entrepreneurs

Kerala is now emerging as the ideal investment destination for potential entrepreneurs. The World Bank revealed this in a recent policy Research Working paper submitted to the multilateral agency by its Finance and Private Sector Development Group headed by Mr. Giuseppe Iarossi. The Group has created a new Investment Climate Index (ICI) to study and map the Investment scenario in 16 Indian States. The concept of Investment Climate Index or ICI is based on the pretext that Entrepreneurs look at and compare a wide range of features of the business climate in each state when deciding on investing. More specifically the paper assume and also inks to the fact that investors take into account a host of factors closely related to the production process such as quality and reliability of infrastructure services, availability of finance, level of corruption, etc. The paper was prepared by collecting data from 4000 Entrepreneurs through face-to-face interviews and focused group Discussions. The researchers have identified 46 variables pertaining to the 16 states and categorized them into 3 namely- Inputs, Institutions and Infrastructure and later these were classified into six sub indices based on objective values (cost) and Subjective Indicators (perception). These sub indices are combined to form the Investment Climate Index.

Investment Climate Index also gives an abstract on other parameters associated with factors conducive for attracting investors to a state. They are the following
A better ICI pertains to a higher level of domestic private investments
A better ICI means a higher growth and reduced poverty.
A better ICI means a climate for better investments.

Based on the ICI the 16 states ranked are as follows
Karnataka
Kerala
Gujarat
Andhra Pradesh
Haryana
West Bengal
Maharashtra
Delhi
Tamil Nadu
Punjab
Jharkand
Orissa
Madhya Pradesh
Bihar
Uttar Pradesh
Rajesthan


According to the ICI ranking of Figure 3the states with the best investment climate are Karnataka and Kerala, followed by Gujarat, Andhra Pradesh, Haryana, West Bengal Maharashtra and Delhi. The worst investment climate is on the contrary found in Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, and Rajasthan. While it is not surprising to see Karnataka as one of the states with the best investment climate in India the ranking of Kerala within the top tear appears a bit unexpected. A closer examination of the data shows that Kerala consistently scores better than average on most objective and perception indicators, although it appears that Kerala manufacturers and retailers perceive their state as having a better business climate than those in the other 15 states in almost all
categories of perception questions.

Nevertheless perception and objective questions do not contradict themselves in almost all dimensions of the investment climate. Hence although Kerala appears among the most optimistic Indian states, its high-ranking does not appears to be driven solely by their perception rankings. As a matter of fact Kerala performs very well on all the 3 categories of indicators, infrastructure, institutions and inputs. More specifically for both objective and perception measures of infrastructure Kerala performs better than average. In objective measures only Karnataka and West Bengal performs better than Kerala in all five indicators. Punjab also performs above average in all indicators but not as much as Kerala. Within the perception variables Kerala performs above average for all indicators as does Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, and Orissa.

In conclusion, it seems that firms in Kerala tend to complain less about constraints than in other countries. However Kerala is not the only state with above average perception on all indicators. Furthermore the perception and objective data do not contradict themselves. So, it is both perception and objective data that make Kerala second in the ranking.

Arbrit Safety Solutions

Arbrit Safety solution is the country’s leading Fire and Safety solutions Consultant. With the headquarters in Cochin Arbrit Safety solutions have been training people and placing them in multi national companies across the Globe. With a strategic tie up with NIFE in Kerala, Arbrit Safety solutions have been anchoring and offering solutions for the Fire and Safety Industry in India. Arbrit safety solutions have also been closely working with the top and middle level managements of some of the well known Private sector and public sector units offering them tailor made courses to suit their business requirements and help them to stay competitive in the Industry.
Over the course of time Arbrit have also diversified into Aviation courses to train personnel in all aspects in aviation safety.
Arbrit values its relationship with customers and people who are getting trained at Arbrit. Arbrit is unique in the sense Arbrit has been able to carve out an Arbrit community consisting of a loyal community of brand ambassadors.
Having reached an unassailable pole position in Kerala, Arbrit is constantly working towards consolidating its position in the market place. Arbrit believes that changing demographic profile of India with global ambitions, increasing urbanization and the empowerment of rural India will add responsibility to Arbrit to train them and help them embark on a global safety career. This would provide the growth ballast that would sustain Arbrit in the years to come.
Arbrit has a modern and well-equipped state-of-the-art training centre in Cochin, built with sizable investment. It is manned by an array of qualified and certified safety professionals, with a combined experience both in the Industry and academia.
Arbrit is now all geared up to tap the Global Market. Arbrit believes in building long-term sustainable partnerships with like-minded Institution and organisations through out the world. Our long-term vision is to be the leader in Fire Safety and Aviation Training in Asia. Arbrit is working on the Global vision titled Vision 2.0 to be one of the top players in the Fire Safety and Aviation training segment in Asia.
With a strong vision supported by determination and hard work Arbrit has delivered value to every aspect of the businesses.

GTECH organises a Session on Food Quality, Safety and Healthy Nutrition

Regular Training and Knowledge transfer among the hotel and the restaurant staffs are the two foundations for ensuring Food quality and Safety standards worldwide. This was the bottom line of a session on Food Quality, Safety and Healthy Nutrition organised by the Group of Technopark Companies (GTECH) in association with Technopark. The session brought together Food Quality and Safety Experts, Select CEO’s, Human Resource Professionals and the Restaurant owners in Technopark on a common platform and deliberated the importance of adopting highest Food Quality and Safety standards in Technopark and also to set up benchmarks for Healthy Nutrition within Technopark. The speaker dwelt on the need for creating an enabling environment to deal with issue of Food Safety and Quality and suggested the need for coming together of key stakeholders in addressing this crucial issue.

Dwelling on the need to provide a balanced and healthy diet, Mr. Anil Thricovil, CEO of Technopark based Alamy Images suggested that adding more Fruits and salads and cutting down the intake of high fat food would help the IT professionals in preventing the onset of life style diseases and requested the Food vendors in Technopark to publish calories of each kind of food which is sold at their respective outlets. Mr. Sunil Somarajan, Training Manager, KTDC suggested the need for Restaurants to adopt scientific practises in Food Safety and to ensure the highest quality to the customers. Ms. Katty Verrill, Manager Quality Assurance, Hotel Muthoot Plaza spoke on the need for restaurants to train their staff on the Food quality, Safety and hygiene aspects. She further added that adopting good hygiene practices would lead to higher productivity, higher customer satisfaction, reduced risk of food poisoning and higher profits. Ms. D Grace Gideon, Principal, Institute of Hotel Management and Catering Technology, Kovalam said that Food Safety and quality standards can only be attained if the entire supply chain from the basic washing of materials for cooking to the final stage of preparation and consumption is scientifically managed.

Mr. Satish Babu , Hon . Secreatry of GTECH moderated the discussion and Mr. S Rama Rao president delivered the inaugural address.

In a Press Release GTECH said that based on the discussion with the Food quality experts, GTECH would establish a Food quality committee in consultation with the Technopark authorities comprising of all the stakeholders to implement some of the suggestions that came out of the session.