Finance Minister
Nirmala Sitharaman
has said that the country needs to ramp up its
manufacturing
sector to increase its share in the
global value chain
and become '
Atmanirbhar
'. Addressing the leaders of the Indian industry at CII Annual Business Summit last week, the minister underlined the need of achieving greater sophistication in product manufacturing and policy support.
"I also want to underline much against the advice given by some economists that India should no longer be looking at manufacturing or ramping up manufacturing.
I like to highlight the fact that manufacturing must increase. India must also increase with the help of policies its (manufacturing) share in the global value chain," FM said.
World looking at China-plus one strategy
Sitharaman expressed hope that India has an opportunity to boost its manufacturing capability as the world is looking at China-plus one strategy post-COVID-19.
Quoting a Capgemini Research Institute report, she said that India figures at the top of the list of investment destinations for senior executives in Europe and in the US, who are looking to reduce their dependence on China and shift part of their manufacturing capacity to emerging markets.
Presently, the telecom sector's PLI has helped India to become a better Atmanirbhar as 60 per cent import substitution has been achieved in the telecom sector. This itself gives quite a big scope for our Indian industry, she said, adding, that the PLI scheme is also transforming the mobile and electronics sectors.
From 78 per cent import to dependence in 2014, she said that today 99 per cent of all mobiles sold in India are made in India. Citing an example, she said, India has become Apple's second largest manufacturing hub for iPhones outside of China with exports to $1.1 billion last year.
Value addition in electronics and smartphone manufacturing too have grown significantly and crossed 20 per cent from the negligible level of 2014-15, she said.
English (US) ·