Coimbatore : In a bid boost to the defence sector, Tamil Nadu Government has identified 300 acres in Sulur on the city outskirts for setting up an industrial park for manufacturing components.

Industries Minister MC Sampath said today that as the Central Government had already announced a defence corridor in the city, the park would help boost the growth of the sector, Sampath told mediapersons on the sidelines of the inauguration of Aerospace Tool Design and Manufacturing programme organised at Lakshmi Works Ltd here.

Similarly, the Government had identified 1,000 acres in Tirupur for starting a SIPCOT industrial park, as the park in Perundhurai was almost full, he said.

It was also proposed to have a western industrial corridor connecting Coimbatore-Karur-Namakkal-Salem along with Chennai-Kanyakumari and Chennai-Bengaluru corridor, he said.

On opportunities in the aerospace industry, Sampath said 30 per cent of engineers in the sector globally were from Tamil Nadu and this, he said, should increase to 50 per cent.

About the drastic decline in the sales of car, Chennai being the manufacturing hub, the minister said he had learnt about this from the Centre and was assessing the situation.

However, he said he was not fully aware about job loss in the automotive industry.