Stressing on the need to focus more on services sector exports, Union Minister Piyush Goyal on Tuesday said it can help boost the country's overall exports further and called for the government and the businesses to support each other.
Addressing a breakfast session organised by the industry body CII and Deloitte on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum Annual Meeting 2022 here, he also said the presence of India has been very very noticeable this time in Davos.
Referring to the challenges posed by the COVID pandemic, the Minister said that despite supply chains having been strained amid global challenges, we have done exceedingly well in terms of exports and other parameters.
According to the Minister, a record level of USD 250 billion of exports came without hospitality and some other key sectors and an extra focus on services sector can help improve the export growth much more.
India now needs to look at value-added exports. It is important to bring jobs to the country. Logistics is one cost that the government is very seriously looking at and if there are any other concerns, the industry may have, we are open to looking at each of those, he added.
"We are willing to dedicate senior government officials to oversee large projects. In the larger scheme of things, we all need to support each other to bring scale to the country," Goyal said. "India has got not only the demographic dividend, a young population, but also a huge talent pool," he said, urging foreign companies to invest in India.
"Come to India and grow with India because India is the future," Goyal said. Goyal asked Indian industry to procure locally wherever there is an opportunity so that domestic supply chains are fortified and become more resilient and the tendency to place excessive dependence on international supply chains is curbed.
He said that in spite of constraints like Covid-19, chip shortages, conflict, rising commodity prices, container shortages and jump in freight rates, exports from the country reached USD 421.8 billion in 2021-22. "India can achieve a target of USD 1 trillion worth of merchandise and services exports by 2030 if we work as a team," he said.
The Minister also said that the government has taken a series of measures to tame inflation. He urged the Indian industry to look at boosting value-added exports and ensure that new jobs came into India instead of raw materials going out of the country.
On the free trade agreement which India is negotiating, he said that agreements with Canada, European Union, UK, Israel and GCC (Gulf Cooperation Council ) were in the pipeline. The United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Oman, Kuwait and Bahrain are GCC members. The world had great confidence in India and wanted to engage with it enthusiastically, he added.
-With PTI Input
