Huge business opportunities in petrochemical industry: Mandaviya

Union Chemicals and Fertilisers Minister Mansukh Mandaviya on Friday asked foreign companies to invest in India's petrochemical industry that presents huge business opportunities.

Addressing 'Asia Petrochemical Industry Conference 2023', Mandaviya asserted that the Modi government is pro-farmer, pro-poor and is also industry-friendly.

He said the government is making long-term policies for chemicals and petrochemicals sector to attract investments from domestic and foreign companies.

The minister asked industry to follow the path of reclaim, reuse and recycle for sustainable development.

"India is poised to be the new destination of petrochemicals, globally. Due to our business-friendly policies, the world views India as a trusted partner and priority destination for investment," Mandaviya said.

He said the Indian chemical manufacturing industry has truly been one of the emerging global manufacturing hub for petrochemicals.

"Today, India is promoting ease of doing business as the Indian government is industry-friendly government by minimising government's interference and through various other measures such as reduction in corporate tax, reduction in compliance burden and by policy changes," the minister said.

India is committed to becoming a trusted partner in the world in global supply chain of chemicals and petrochemicals, the minister said.

Mandaviya emphasised that this is the best time to invest in India with such a huge population.

"India, itself is a big market to invest. We are making way for free trade agreements with many countries...," he said.

The government is working effortlessly on policies to attract investment from domestic and foreign sources to address the major issue of availability of petrochemical.

He said the government has made necessary changes such as production-linked incentive scheme for chemicals and also proposed the manufacturing of difficult and strategic chemicals intermediates in India.

"India also provides an opportunity for easy import and export. It provides a win-win situation for foreign countries for joint ventures," the minister said.

Asia Petrochemical Industry Conference (APIC) is a broad-based petrochemical industry conference with membership from seven partner countries India, Japan, Korea, Malaysia, Singapore, Taiwan, and Thailand.

Over 1,200 delegates from seven member nations, participants from Europe, China, America, Middle East and other Asian countries, other senior government officials of key nations as well as regional and global partners participated in the conference.