PLI will help India become strong, self-sufficient and self-reliant: Commerce & Industry Minister

The Production-Linked Incentive (PLI) will help India in becoming strong, self-sufficient, self-reliant and meeting the country’s domestic needs as well as exports, believes Piyush Goyal, the Commerce & Industry Minister. He said that the PLIs announced earlier for the telecom, APIs and medical devices have received encouraging response. Goyal pointed out that the government will do the hand-holding for these sectors over the next five years.

The minister said the Indian economy is coming out of the COVID setback, and several datasets indicate that the country is returning back to the business. The PMI index is at a high level, not seen for a long time. The GST collections in October were 10 per cent more than the corresponding period of last year. The Indian exports were also up by five per cent in September. After a small dip in October, the exports in the first week of November have also shown 22 per cent growth.

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Goyal said imports are also picking up; it indicates that economic activity is normalizing. He added that the railway freight in the last two months has been 15 per cent, more than the corresponding period of 2019. Furthermore, Indian companies have also showed signs of returning back to normalcy. Last week, SBI Chairman Dinesh Khara had said the Indian economy is expected to be on normal course by early next fiscal despite investment demand from corporate taking time to pick up. “Everybody would like to get into the mainstream economic activity as soon as possible. Earlier we had felt that it is a pent up demand coming from consumers. But I think now the way indicators are showing, there is a very clear trend pointing towards demand,” he said. “When it comes to investment demand, I think it is still something away and that is because as I look at it, the capacity utilization in the economy is somewhere around 69 per cent, and expecting any fresh investment demand coming from the private corporates looks quite unlikely for some more time to come.”

The government had invited global investors to invest in India, take benefit of the huge domestic market and conducive business environment in the country. Goyal said India, with a transparent system and open democracy, is being seen as a trusted partner in the global value chains.