A national manufacturing policy, which aims to create massive employment opportunities and make India a manufacturing hub as well as to catalyse growth in manufacturing in sync with sustainable development, will soon be announced, said Anand Sharma, Minister for Commerce and Industry. Such a policy is being considered to woo foreign investment and increase the share of manufacturing in the gross domestic product (GDP).
India will soon change its growth strategy and increase manufacturing exports, he added.
The new manufacturing policy will raise the share of manufacturing in the country’s GDP to at least 25 per cent by 2020. Currently, manufacturing contributes to just about 16 per cent of India’s GDP, despite a record growth of 11 per cent over the last few years.
“The manufacturing sector engages 11 per cent of India’s workforce, contributes about a fifth of our GDP and nearly half of our exports. In the next decade, 100 million people are set to join the industrial workforce,” he said. The government is also planning to set up an electronics development fund to promote innovation, R&D and intellectual property development.
