Prime Minister Narendra Modi spent one week promoting the Make in India campaign. The aim of the campaign is to turn India into a manufacturing hub. In the next six years, PM Modi wants to create 100 million manufacturing jobs to boost development.
The week long fair of Make in India closed on February 18th and closed with investments worth $222 billion. However, as reported by the media, the attendance at the fair was thin in regards to foreign firms.
According to media reports, The Mumbai jamboree was the biggest in India, but earlier events such as the “Vibrant Gujarat” launched by Modi when he led the state have only seen 13 percent of deals implemented, according to independent research.
However, the $222 billion fell short of around 25 trillion rupees as was promised at the three-day Vibrant Gujarat event a year ago.
Amitabh Kant, Secretary of India’s Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion (DIPP), told the media that he is expecting 80-85 percent of the pledges to turn into a serious business.
“This was the biggest multi-sectoral event ever done across Asia,” he told the media.
However, research commissioned by the free-market Friedrich Naumann and Cato institutes have found that the rate of conversion of such pledges into real investments in India has typically been far lower – with no state exceeding 20 percent.
