Thursday, July 11, 2013: The recent move from the Indian government has brought disappointing news for hardware firms and the IESA (India Electronics and Semiconductor Association) suggests that it will have a negative impact on the economy of the country.
A day after the government said that it will review the ‘buy India’ policy that required government investments to have a portion of locally manufactured goods, start up industries and other national experts say that this is going to hurt the development of the domestic sector. The PMA was approved by the government in February 2012 to curb security threats for imports and boost the domestic sector has received huge opposition from the international trade associations. On Monday, the Prime Minister Office announced that the PMA treatment policy has now been put on hold as it needs to be reviewed and revisited.
The Current Accounts Deficits for the country had hit a record high of 4.8 per cent in the 2012-13 GDP. The government estimates that demand for electronics will be reaching a figure of $400 billion by the year 2020. If no corrective measures are taken, the amount of imports will be $300 billion by that period.
The decision to rethink on the PMA policy could certainly confuse investors as a lot of schemes and policies were under its periphery. The soon to be revised proposal will include detailed provisions for product/sector/project specific security standardization and will come with alternative modes of certification for the same. A roadmap is being aimed at for better domestic testing capacity.
