Union Minister of Commerce and Industry Shri Piyush Goyal today addressed FICCI’s annual convention & 93rd Annual General Meeting. Shri Goyal said in his address that Scale of manufacturing, coupled with quality & productivity, can truly make India competitive in several sectors & help move towards an Aatmanirbhar Bharat which is going to be an important building block of the New India. AatmanirbharBharat is about India improving its quality & scale of production, he stated.
Shri Goyal said that we will identify areas where we have competitive & comparative advantages, where we can become global players & contribute to global trade in a bigger way. “The tyre & rubber industry ecosystem can become a great business leader in the years to come. We will be encouraging rubber plantation through the support of private investment & Government will give adequate support to tyre industry so that it can grow & flourish. We have identified another 24 sectors on which work is going on by industry leaders who are working together to come up with actionable agenda to add nearly 200 lakh crores worth of manufacturing in India in the next 10 years. This will certainly add lakhs of job opportunities and create scale & quality in different sectors.”, he added.
Describing Startups as the backbone of new India, Shri Goyal said that Startups & the ecosystem of Startups are encouraging innovation and promoting & strengthening new & young entrepreneurs. He urged the Indian industry to support the startups, by providing them financial support, hand holding, opportunities and mentorship so that they can grow, without resorting to dilution of their stakes to foreign companies at very low valuations at the initial stage itself.
Talking about reducing the compliance burdens, Shri Goyal said that we are working hard to create the first genuine Single Window System in terms of compliances, ease of approval process. “We intent to come up with a much easier process to meet with compliances, while simultaneously working across ministries to see if we can reduce the burden of compliances:, he added.
Speaking about the proposed Brand India initiative, the Minister said that it is an idea where Government& Industry will partner with each other & develop both on the Make in India side & overall Brand India side. He said “we are also looking at branding India. It’s time now that India demonstrate to the world our leadership position & commitment of quality. Once a product is branded an Indian brand, it should demonstrate to the world that it is of superior quality.Under the Brand India initiative, we will educate consumers both in India & internationally about products which are made in India. We are pushing all industry to certify the Make in India products.” He thanked FICCI for their support in the initiative to create Brand India.
Shri Goyal said that the Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi has worked tirelessly & inspired the nation with his vision, simplicity & courage to think beyond the past limitations & willingness to embrace change. He said that the PM is very clear in his mind that the country has to prosper, laws have to be made for the larger benefit of our society and benefits of growth & economic development should reach to the last man standing at the bottom of the pyramid.
Stating that the Union Government is committed to the welfare of farmers, Shri Piyush Goyal urged all business leaders & intellectuals associated with FICCI to talk about the benefits of the farm laws, as these laws are for the benefit of all the farmers across the country. He said that these laws without changing the past systems will open up new opportunities to do trade, commerce & business for the farmers. This will bring more investment in rural India & increase farmers’ income, he said.