Over six thousand new factories will be set up in Uttar Pradesh in the current financial year. This is almost double from 3,100 factories set up in 2023-24 and significantly higher than a decade ago, said Alok Kumar, Additional Chief Secretary, Infrastructure & Industrial Development Department, MSME & Export Promotion, and NRI Affairs, Government of Uttar Pradesh. Kumar also said the state is tapping opportunities in the GCC and other new economy spaces.

“In 2015, UP was registering 500 new factories a year. In 2023-24, as per the annual survey of industries, we installed 3,100 factories. In the current year, we will be setting up 6,000 factories,” Kumar said at Fortune India’s annual India’s Best CEOs 2025 awards in Mumbai earlier this week.

“The growth is not linear but very exponential. We have doubled our GDP in the last seven years. We have doubled out per capita income, and we have doubled our exports. So, we see a lot of growth momentum,” Kumar said.

Kumar pointed out that the foundation of the growth momentum, which the state has witnessed in the last five to seven years, is based on four pillars. “UP is a story that needs to be told. Four pillars are powering UP’s growth at this point of time. First pillar is safety, which means the investors should feel safe. Second pillar is infrastructure. So, look at the expressways, airports, railway network, look at our logistics,” Kumar said.  

“Third issue pertains to governance and the overall treatment to the investors. As to how you treat the investors and how you measure up in the ease of doing business and the logistics access. And the final pillar is the policy environment. As to how attractive is the state as a destination for the potential investor. On all these four counts, we have done fairly well,” Kumar said adding that the investors will relate to the statistics that he shared.

UP’s GCC, new economy push

Kumar also dispelled the popular notion that Uttar Pradesh is an agrarian state and said the state is tapping into new economy segments with the expansion of the Noida region with the new international airport and is also looking at further development of Lucknow.

“UP has 96 lakh MSME units. In a state of 24 crore, that makes it one unit operating in every five families,” Kumar said, adding that the state always had a strong base of industry, citing the brass industry in Moradabad and the leather industry in Kanpur and Agra as examples.

He pointed out that the services sector in Uttar Pradesh needs improvement. “There is a lot of momentum in manufacturing, but we need a lot of improvement in the services side. That is why we have come up a with a new GCC policy because that will be a good growth area. Tech industry is based in the NCR, but we need to deepen it further. That is one of the focus areas in the coming few years,” Kumar said.

“If you look at the GCC policy that has been recently announced and benchmark it with other states, you would see that it is one of the best policies to have,” Kumar said.  

“Secondly, there is the issue of setting up of top-class office infrastructure. So, we are marketing two cities. Noida of course is extended to Greater Noida and is now being extended to what we call as the Yamuna Authority where the new airport is coming up. So that expanded area already has an ecosystem around it, which can really deepen this kind of setup,” he added.

Kumar said the second focus area is Lucknow. “It is a city that has been underrated as far as I can see it. And that is another city which has good potential. Of late, a host of companies have come to Lucknow. IBM has come to Lucknow, and HDFC has opened a huge centre in Lucknow. Genpact is coming and Deloitte has set up a base in Lucknow. So we see these two cities with a lot of potential,” Kumar said.

Kumar urged the investors to invest in the UP as the state offers a continental dimension, with a population of 240 million, a young demography, and a very large market.