New Business Opportunities in Kerala

Tourism

Kerala is one of the most sought-after tourist destinations in Asia, with many beaches, wildlife reserves, backwaters and hill stations to offer.

With its popular alternative medical therapies such as Ayurveda, Kerala is also popular for medical tourism. Several hospitals across the state maintain international standards in infrastructure, healthcare and state-of-the-art equipment, attracting foreign patients.

The state attracted around 11 Mn domestic and foreign visitors in 2019, registering a healthy growth of 17.2 %.

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Food Processing

Kerala is a major exporter of spices, marine products, cashew, coffee and pickles.

Food processing industry has been recognised as a priority sector in Kerala due to its potential for future growth and possibility of generating substantial employment. The following projects are being undertaken by the Kerala for this sector:

KINFRA Food Processing Park, Kakkanchery, Malappuram (Completed)
Food and Spices Park, Muttam, Idukki
KINFRA Mega Food Park, Palakkad
KSIDC Mega Food Park, Alappuzha
Home to 75% of India’s EU Certified Sea Food Units
5 state-of-the-art Food Processing Parks including 2 Mega Food Parks
Spices Park coming up in Idukki

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Information Technology

Kerala is home to more than 800 IT companies, employing more than 100,000 employees.

The state offers IT infrastructure in the form of dedicated IT parks such as Technopark in Thiruvananthapuram and Kollam, notified as special economic zones. Overall, more than 800 ha of land is available for development for IT-related infrastructure.

IT and Technology Parks: Technopark – at Trivandrum, Infopark at Kochi, Smart City at Kochi and Cyberpark at Calicut
Technopark: India's first technology park and among the three largest IT parks in India today. This is the first CMMI Level 4 assessed Technology Park.
Kerala Startup Village – Run on a PPP model is transforming Kochi into one of the most vibrant tech-startup locales in the country
Maker Village - Largest electronic hardware incubator and Electronics System Design & Manufacturing (ESDM) facility in the country

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Oil & Gas

Kerala is emerging as a hub for petrochemical activities, investing in projects having estimated costs of over INR 1,000 crore.

BPCL Kochi refinery is making a major capacity expansion from 9.5 MMTPA to 15.5 MMTPA. BPCL will produce 500,000 TPA of propylene, which would be the major feed stock for production of petrochemicals.

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Electronic System Design and Manufacturing

World-class research, development & testing facilities to support electronic industries

Kerala has many companies engaged in the manufacture of various components, products, and services catering to High end electronics / defense sectors

The first State in the Country to setup a company dedicated to Electronics (KELTRON)

Major players in the State include SFO Technologies, KEL, V-Guard, FCI-OEN etc.

KINFRA is setting up a land bank of 4,896 acres in 11 parcels in Kannur for the development of industrial parks.

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Life Sciences

The State’s rich biodiversity comprising of abundant flora and fauna has fostered a thriving R&D culture, giving birth to many research institutions in agriculture, Ayurveda, medical sciences, biotechnology, fisheries, marine sciences and more

Skilled & educated manpower
Presence of R&D institutes
KSIDC has set-up a Life Sciences Park at Thiruvananthapuram

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Urbanisation Rate

Females/ 1000 Males

Female/Male Ratio

Demographics

About 65% of Kerala's population is in the working age group of 15-59 years.

Kerala ranks 1^st in HDI rankings with a score of 0.77. Kerala, the 13^th most populated state, is home to 3% of the country's total population. The state's population of 33 mn is equivalent to the population of Canada. Remittance in 2020 crossed INR 1lakh crore