Prime Minister Narendra Modi will inaugurate the Make in India Week in Mumbai on February 13, a mega event in which the government expects participation of over a 1,000 companies and delegates from over 60 countries.
"We have taken a very major initiative to launch the Make in India Week which will be held in February from the 13-18 February 2016," DIPP Secretary Amitabh Kant told reporters here.
"The event would be inaugurated on February 13 by the Prime Minister. The theme of the event will be innovation, design and sustainability," he added.
The main aim of the event is to attract more FDI into the country, said the secretary, Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion (DIPP).
"Since the announcement of Make in India we have been able to get significant investments. After the launch of Make in India, FDI in the last 17 months as compared to the previous 17 months has grown by about 35 per cent," he said.
Kant said the global investor community has responded to growing confidence.
"We have been able to get substantial investments in areas which include electronics, automotive, food processing, textiles and garments, renewable energy and construction. Several companies like Foxconn, Zenith, IKEA, Wanda group of China are investing in India.
"Many of the investments have fructified, many are in the process of fructification. We are handholding for many investments. All the investments are in the process of happening," the DIPP Secretary said.
The "key challenge", he said, is to make India the easiest and simplest place to do business, a goal which the Government is determined to achieve.
"We will push for greater momentum to domestic companies in India. In the next one month DIPP officials will be going across India holding a series of roadshows to provide impetus and momentum to domestic companies, push their investments. We will also provide a push to startups," Kant said.
Asked whether political compulsions should keep India away from opening up multi-brand retail for FDI, Kant said: "Government has done a lot of liberalisation across sectors... These are all things calibrated at the political level. India is today the most open economy in the world. We have opened up everything except multi-brand".
On government's target for FDI growth in the next one
year, Kant said: "We must continue to grow FDI at 30 per cent plus."
Regarding progress on the cities to be developed along the Delhi-Mumbai Industrial Corridor (DMIC), he said: "Our focus is on creating world-class infrastructure. We have 7 new cities. Out of these, in four cities implementation is underway. Tenders have already been rolled and awarded in several places."
A total of 24 manufacturing cities are envisaged under the DMIC project.
Similarly, on the Chennai-Bengaluru Industrial Corridor, he said: "We have moved ahead with the state governments in three cities along the Chennai-Bangalore corridor which are Tumkur in Karnataka, Puneri in Tamil Nadu and Krishnapatnam in Andhra Pradesh where states have been able to provide land."
On the October IIP figures, Kant said: "We have got some very good results in the IIP... India needs to just accelerate this. There is greater predictability and clarity in policy we just need to push it further".
The index of industrial production (IIP) for October stood at 9.8 per cent versus 3.6 per cent (month-on-month).
Kant also shared a report of Invest India - national investment promoting agency - entailing investment commitment made by several companies including Google, Microsoft, Amazon, General Electric, PepsiCo, Foxconn and Samsung.
According to the report, 'Marquee Investments', the country has a large electronics systems design & manufacturing (ESDM) market demand is projected at more than USD 90 billion in 2015 itself. Around 65 per cent of the current demand for electronics products is met by imports and a "zero net import by 2020" has been set.
Moreover, clean energy is expected to yield business worth USD 160 billion in India in the next five years.
