The Economy of Coimbatore emphasizes engineering and textiles. Coimbatore is called the Manchester of South India due to its extensive textile industry, fed by the surrounding cotton fields.[1][2] The district also houses the country's largest amount of hosiery and poultry industries . The city has two special economic zones (SEZ), the Coimbatore Hi-Tech Infrastructure (CHIL) SEZ and the Tidel park coimbatore, and at least five more SEZs are in the pipeline.[3][4][5] As of 2005, when Tirupur was a part of Coimbatore district, Coimbatore was the highest revenue earning district in Tamil Nadu.[6] In 2010, Coimbatore ranked 15th in the list of most competitive (by business environment) Indian cities.[7]
Coimbatore has trade associations like CODISSIA, COINDIA, SITRA and COJEWEL representing industries in the city. Coimbatore also has a 160,000 square feet (15,000 m2) trade fair ground, built in 1999. It was named COINTEC due to its hosting of INTEC (Small Industries Exhibition)[3]. The Trade Fair complex, one of the country's largest, was built in six months, and is owned by CODISSIA (Coimbatore District Small Industries Association)[4]. It is also the country's largest pillar-free hall, according to the Limca Book of Records.[8]
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Coimbatore houses a large number of small, medium and large texitle mills. It also has central textile research institutes like the Central Institute for Cotton Research (CICR)- Southern Regional station and the Sardar Vallabhai Patel International School of Textiles and Management. The South Indian Textiles Research Association (SITRA) is also based in Coimbatore. The city also houses two of the Centers Of Excellences (COE) for technical textiles proposed by Government of India, namely Meditech, a medical textile research centre based at SITRA, and InduTech based in PSG College of Engineering and Technology.[9]
The neighbouring town of Tirupur is home to some of Asia’s largest garment manufacturing companies, exporting hosiery clothes worth more than 50,000 million.
The city is the second largest software producer in Tamil Nadu, next only to Chennai. IT and BPO industry in the city has grown greatly with the launch of TIDEL park and other planned IT parks in and around the city. It is ranked at[10] 17th among the global outsourcing cities. Companies like Tata Consultancy Services, Cognizant Technology Solutions, IBM, Robert Bosch GmbH, Tata Elxsi, Dell, Aditi Technologies, CSS Corp and KGISL having a presence in the city. Software exports stood at 710.66 Crores (7.1 billion) for the financial year 2009-10 up 90% from the previous year.[11]
Coimbatore has a large and a diversified manufacturing sector facilitated by the presence of research institutes like Tamil Nadu Agricultural University, SITRA and large number of engineering colleges producing about 50,000 engineers.[12] Some of the prominent industries in Coimbatore include L&T, BOSCH, PSG, Sakthi group, Lakshmi Machine Works (LMW), Premier Instruments & Control Limited (PRICOL), Premier Evolvics, Janatics, LGB, Revathi Equipment Ltd, ELGI Equipments, Craftsman Automation Pvt Ltd, Shanthi Gears, Roots Industries.
Wind Energy major Suzlon has set up a foundry & machine shop in Coimbatore. Along with it Hansen Transmission, a Belgian Company which manufactures gearboxes for windmills is setting up a plant here with an investment of 940 cr.[13]
Textool offered a prototype of Sten Guns to the Indian Government after independence. They developed the first in-house designed car in the 1960s, which never saw the light of day due to the license raj. They made several prototypes until the 1990s. They successfully manufactured India's first indigenously developed diesel engines in 1972 for cars and their own CNC lathes in 1982. Today their spin-off company, Jayem Automotives, offers R & D services to Mahindra, Tata Motors and Hindustan Motors. Maruti Udyog and Tata Motors source up to 30% of their automotive components from Coimbatore. Some of the auto component makers in Coimbatore include Robert Bosch GmbH, PRICOL and Roots Industries.
Coimbatore has more than 700 wet grinder manufacturers with a monthly output As of March 2005[update] of 75,000 units.[14] The term "Coimbatore Wet Grinder" was given a Geographical indication for wet grinders manufactured in Coimbatore and Erode in 2006.[15] Coimbatore is also home to a common facility for the manufacturers of wet grinders.[16]
Coimbatore is also called as the pump city of Asia. The City houses large number of small scale engineering companies. The motor and pump industry supplies over 40% of India’s requirements.[17] The Major Pump manufacturers Aquasub engineering, Mahendra Pumps, Suguna pumps, Sharp Industries, Deccan Pumps, CRI Pumps, Texmo Industries, Flowserve, Kirloskar Brothers & KSB Pumps have manufacturing base in the city.[18]
Coimbatore is one of the major gold jewellery manufacturing hubs in India, renowned for making cast jewellery and machine made jewellery.[19][20] The city is home to about 3000 jewellery manufacturing companies and to over 40,000 goldsmiths.[21][22] The jewellery manufacturers have an active association called Coimbatore Jewellery Manufacturers' Association, and have also jointly established Coimbatore Gem and Jewellery Industries Private Limited (Cojewel), which is a common facility with niche goldsmith machinery to be used by the members of the association.
Several jewellery retail chains like Kirtilal's are based in Coimbatore or have their manufacturing base in Coimbatore.[23]
Owing to the presence of a large number of jewellery manufacturers and the strong engineering base, the city is home to a number of companies manufacturing jewellery making machinery.[24] The city is also a major diamond cutting centre in South India. For example Kirtilal's Jewellers alone have 5 diamond cutting and polishing centres in Coimbatore.[25][26]
Coimbatore has some of the oldest flour mills in India. The large scale flour mills, which cater to all the southern states, have a combined grinding capacity of more than 50,000 MT per month.The city houses many famous high capacity flour mills like India Roller Flour Mills (which is closed now) and Coimbatore Roller Flour Mills.[27] These flour mills have been around for decades and were in the outskirts of the city at one time. Now they are in the middle of the city owing to increasing urbanization.
There are a number of retail outlets, supermarkets and shopping malls in Coimbatore. The food chain Sri Krishna Sweets is based in Coimbatore while the Nilgiris supermarket has branches in the city. The Chennai Silks,[28]Nalli,[29] and Naihaa have showrooms in Coimbatore. Coimbatore is already the largest non-metro city for e-commerce in South India, due to growing online shopping, e-ticketing and e-billing adaptation in the city.[30]
In the recent years, the city has seen growth in the hospitality industry. Five star hotels like Taj Coromandel(Surya), Taj Residency, Le Royal Meridien, Trident, Hilton Garden Inn, four star hotels like Aloft and several three star hotels like Park Plaza, The Residency, CAG Pride, Heritage Inn, Jenney Residency, Alankar Grande, Rathna Residency, Hotel City Tower and Mangala International have presence in the city.[31][32][33]
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