By IANS,
New Delhi : The Chennai leather cluster in Tamil Nadu is among the 10 dynamic industrial clusters in the world, says a UN agency’s report on industrial development report.
“These (case studies) are included in the report to demonstrate practical models for bottom billion nations to learn and profit from,” said the report of the United Nations Industrial Development Organisation (UNIDO) released Monday.
The other nine cluster studies featured in the report are: Buenos Aires automotive cluster of Argentina, South Eastern Brazil pulp and paper cluster, Pnom Penh garment cluster in Cambodia, Los Lagos salmon cluster in Chile, Qiaotou button cluster in China, Jakarta automotive cluster in Indonesia, Penang electronics cluster in Malaysia, Otigba computer component cluster in Nigeria, and agro and wood cluster of Lao People’s Democratic Republic.
According to the UNIDO report, Chennai enjoyed the highest employment export elasticity of 1.3 – this means that for every 1 percent increase in exports, employment went up by 1.3 percent.
The employment and average wages in the surveyed firms in Chennai rose from 4,643 workers and $174 per month in 2000 to 7,754 workers and $187 in 2006.
“Although leather goods manufacturing is pollution-intensive, the erection of treatment plants through the efforts of relevant institutions and the state government of Tamil Nadu has helped lower pollution levels,” the report said.
“The developing world needs many such industrial clusters for the overall economic growth and employment generation,” Phillippe Scholtes, UNIDO’s South Asia head, said while releasing the report.