India’s New Manufacturing Policy

The Indian government said in April it will soon unveil a national manufacturing policy, which aims at attracting overseas investments and increase the share of the sector in the economy. “India will come out with a national manufacturing policy within this year, hopefully before June,” Indian Commerce and Industry Minister Anand Sharma said recently. The country will also be taking other initiatives along with states to promote the manufacturing sector, Sharma also said.

“I hope, we will be able to do it soon,” Sharma said at a CII function in New Delhi.

The Indian government aims at increasing the share of manufacturing sector from 16-17%  to 25-26% of the GDP by 2020. It’s said that over 80% of the country’s overall industrial production is from manufacturing.

Sharma said that India’s first National Manufacturing Policy is in the works. It will likely include integrated “green-field” mega-investment zones to attract global investment and cutting-edge technologies.

India 2.0. Millions of skilled workers are expected to join India’s manufacturing segment in the near future. A good new policy would help attract those individuals as well as increased foreign direct investment into the country.

India’s exports this fiscal are likely to increase to $235 billion, from $178.6 billion in 2009-10. The new export strategy aims at doubling India’s exports to $450 billion by 2014.

On the proposed Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA), which is a new international treaty being framed by a group of developed nations, the minister Sharma declined to pursue that line of thinking.  He said India would not accept any such attempts to discuss intellectual property rights outside the multilateral WTO framework, as reported multiple journals in India. India is opposing ACTA, saying that it would have far-reaching implications for non-members of ACTA. The countries such as the US, EU, Japan, Australia, Canada and New Zealand are still evaluating the agreement.

“Few countries will group together and try to change what is and will always be a multilateral regime called the TRIPS agreement. If it has to revisited in any stage in future, it will be only in multilateral forum — the WTO — it cannot be done outside,” he added.

For reference, make a note of these links:

Confederation of Indian Industry: www.cii.in

Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry: www.ficci.com

National Manufacturing Competitiveness Council: http://nmcc.nic.in