)
Prime Minister Narendra Modi in his maiden Independence Day speech boomed to the world that he will turn India into a manufacturing and export powerhouse packed coupled with employment generation for the country’s teeming youth even as he invited foreign investors to come and invest here.
“Come make in India. Be it plastics or cars or satellites or agricultural products, come make in India … We need to encourage the manufacturing sector. We need to channelise the strength of the youth through manufacturing. Manufactured goods should have zero defect as also zero effect on environment,” PM said from the sprawling Red Fort here today as he referred himself as the country’s ‘Pradhan Sewak’ (first servent) and not as ‘Pradhan Mantri’ (Prime Minister).
Expressing concerns on the country’s rising import bill, Modi today urged Indian entrepreneurs to make everything required for the people of the country so that it does not rely on import.
Also Read
"We should strive to be a nation that doesn't import, but exports. I urge the youth to reduce dependence on imported products," he said.
Ever since the new government under the National Democratic Alliance have come to power in May this year, it has stressed on making India a global manufacturing hub. However, although these are encouraging signs, the task to achieve this goals remains onerous with several reform measures still stuck.
However, according to some officials, the Prime Minister's speech was a clear indication of more reforms to come in the near future.
"Although this government has halted the FDI policy in multibrand retail, it will throw open several other key sectors for more foreign inflows with a clear focus on manufacturing and employment generation," said an official, who refused to be identified.
According to another official, the government is expected to propel manufacturing by coming out with an incentive package for the Special Economic Zones (SEZ).
Share of the manufacturing sector to the country’s GDP has remained a stagnant 16 per cent while the goal is to achieve 25 per cent by 2020 as per the National Manufacturing Policy (NMP).
The NMP was rolled out in November 2011. Recently, minister of state (independent charge) for commerce and industry Nirmala Sitharaman stated that the NMP contains dispensations to facilitate manufacturing industry both in the National Investment and Manufacturing Zones (NIMZs) and for manufacturing industry in the country as a whole including wherever manufacturing units are able to organize themselves in clusters as stipulated in the policy.
The government has granted in-principle approval to a total of 16 National Investment and Manufacturing Zones (NIMZs). Of these, 8 NIMZs are located outside the Delhi-Mumbai Industrial Corridor (DMIC) region.
Recently, the government also liberalised foreign investment policy for some of the key sectors like railways in the construction and maintenance segments and in the defence sectors.
Last month the Cabinet, chaired by PM, gave its nod for setting up Chinese industrial parks in the country across all segments.
As per the National Accounts Statistics, the annual growth rate (at 2004-05 prices) of the manufacturing sector in 1991-92 was negative at (-) 2.4%, after which the annual growth rate remained positive in successive years before becoming marginally negative at (-) 0.7% in 2013-14.
Exports on the other hand have started on a positive note this fiscal reaching $107.83 billion during April-July against $99.28 billion in the same period last fiscal. The government will soon be announcing the new Foreign Trade Policy for a period of five years from 2014 till 2019.
Merchandise exports from the country is expected to have a positive run this fiscal owing to early recovery signs in US and EU.
