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.The neighbouring city 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 17th among the global outsourcing cities. Companies like Tata Consultancy Services, Cognizant Technology Solutions, IBM, Robert Bosch GmbH, Cameron International Corporation, Tata Elxsi, Dell, Aditi Technologies, CSS Corp and KGISL having a presence in the city. Coimbatore is already the second largest hub in India for Cognizant Technology Solutions as it employs around 5000 people in its Coimbatore centre and is planning to double its capacity here.Software exports stood at 710.66 Crores (7.1 billion) for the financial year 2009-10 up 90% from the previous year.
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. 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
