On Wednesday the Union Government marked 10 years of the flagship “Make in India” scheme. Celebrating the schemes success, Union Minister of Commerce and Industry Piyush Goyal said that the world is now looking to India as a manufacturing destination.
In an exclusive virtual interaction with ANI from Adelaide, the Union Minister said, “It is a story of lost decade vs last decade. 2004 to 2014 India went to despondency, investor interest was shattered, and corruption became the order of the day so much so that an environment clearance was not possible during the Congress government. The economy, foreign exchange reserves and growth were down, the rupee fell, and inflation was high. People had given up on India. Even domestic investments were stalled…In that scenario PM Modi took charge in 2014 and the last decade has been where the macro-economic fundamentals have been made strong- startup India, one district one product, 20 new industrial smart cities, reduction of compliance burden…Improvement in our ease of doing business ranking, promoting technology, and innovation. It is been a holistic approach in partnership with private sectors both in India & internationally…Today the world looks up at India as a manufacturing destination.”
Goyal further added that the good governance provided by PM Narendra Modi has restored the confidence of both domestic and foreign investors. Under PM Modi the government is supercharged to get into the next decade and become a manufacturing superpower for the world.
“PM Modi had focused on Atmanirbhar Bharat and we are focused on those products where our import dependency was high to promote the manufacturing and domestic availability of those products. We believe that international trade is important and very often necessary because every country has their own competitive comparative advantages. Imports per se are not bad. We are looking at a larger engagement with the world both with imports and exports. So that products where we have the edge we are able to make and sell across the world. If there is a product that we import there are two reasons one is they may not have the raw material or we may not be competitive in that. The other is rapidly increasing domestic demand,” he said.
The minister asserted that skilling, reskilling and upskilling initiatives of the government will benefit the youth in the coming years. This will not only create jobs but also create new entrepreneurs who can provide jobs and adds to the country’s growth.
“Manufacturing is giving a huge impetus to job creation. You see the Apple story now the Apple i-16 made in India is launched in India. And who makes them? Women working in the Chennai factory in Tamil Nadu. When we used to import air conditioners, we never knew we could become a global manufacturer of air conditioners and a potential exporter of air conditioning equipment. We are now a 50% domestic value-added industry in air conditioners. With four compressor plants coming up India will soon become an exporter of air conditioners…Manufacturing creates jobs and an ecosystem which creates entrepreneurs and provides jobs to young men and women. As manufacturing grows there are jobs created in setting up factories, housing for the people, building infrastructure, and logistics…The critics can keep crying hoarse.
The minister said the policies of the government in the past 10 years, have made India’s exports increase significantly post-COVID both in merchandise and services.
“The world recognises the scale at which you can produce an export from India is mind-boggling and the competitiveness of the costing of the product is also very attractive. India offers domestic demand and with domestic demand large scale, we become competitive in other nations. I am very confident that this thrust given to export including making districts as export hubs will hold India in good stead. We are seeing newer and newer destinations for our export goods, we are seeing our agriculture & marine exports grow up dramatically. Thanks to the production link incentive schemes we are now seeing mobile phones grow so much so that the electronics is the third-largest export sector from India,” Goyal said.
Earlier on Wednesday Piyush Goyal met with Don Farrell, Minister of Trade and Tourism, Australia. Both the nations reiterated the commitment to partner with each other to provide a bouquet of opportunities for businesses, to leverage the full potential of our economic relationship.
