AP government investment: AP government eyes top talent for investment promotion body

With N Chandrababu Naidu taking over in Andhra Pradesh, competition among the southern states to attract investment is heating up.The state government is reviving the AP Economic Development Board (EDB) — the investment planning and promotion agency that people in the know said had mostly been defunct since 2019. The agency has begun recruiting professionals to manage its backend and frontend operations as well as the legal, social media, branding and marketing functions.

“Andhra Pradesh is going all out to attract top talent for its investment promotion agency,” one of the people said. “These investment promotion agencies are the bedrock of bringing in large scale investments to a state and hence it is an important aspect that the government is sharply focused on.”

The EDB has completed one round of hiring for specialists and experts, especially in fields like manufacturing, pharma, IT and IteS and global capability centres, said the people. For these roles, it is hiring from across the country.

“The AP EDB has about 20 people presently and they are looking to organically grow the organisation,” another person said. “The AP EDB is a concept that came about under CM Naidu in 2014. The entity was among the first modernised investment promotion agencies which saw great success and became a model for other states till it became defunct in 2019 after Naidu lost power. This is a concerted move to revive the agency.”

The board is primarily focusing on three functions and will look at both freshers and seasoned professionals to fill the roles, this person explained. “These include those at the backend who will be proactive and follow up on leads and generate new ones that can be looked into. Another critical focus will be on those who will be at the front end and can network and close deals. This is where experienced professionals come in … And thirdly, they’re hiring specialists in legal matters, social media, branding and marketing.”

Many experts also keen to be part of the board because it presented an “exciting challenge” to bring investments to a state like AP versus more established investment destinations, said an official.”Getting investments to a state like Tamil Nadu or Karnataka is not that hard because these are established hubs,” the official said. “With Andhra Pradesh, the ecosystem is not there and the state doesn’t have its capital ready and it is viewed as being an unstable bet which is not something investors want. But for driven people, it poses an incredibly satisfying proposition to really be able to build something from the ground up and that is something that is appealing to some.”