CII Service Sector Conclave recommends for a Nodal Body under Cabinet Secretary

The

recently-held CII Service Sector Conclave in New Delhi witnessed logistics service industry getting recognised by corporate houses as well as policy-makers. Addressing the gathering, Anand Sharma, Union Minister for Commerce and Industry, emphasised the importance of logistics services for the building the nation’s economy and proposed a Competitiveness Council for Services Sector to make the industry worldstandard. “India’s services sector contributes to around 60 per cent of our GDP, 35 per cent of employment, a quarter of the country’s total trade and more than half of its foreign investment inflows. However, in a global market of US$ 4 trillion of services exports, India’s share is still low. It’s US$ 227 billion,” the minister pointed out. “Logistics services is one of the sectors that requires our attention in the context of services exports,” added

SR Rao, Commerce Secretary, Government

of India.

The Conclave was also addressed by several logistics service providers including

Tushar Jani, Chairman, SCA Group and Chairman, Blue Sea Shipping Agency;

Vasant Murthy, CEO, Container & Logistics Business, Adani Port & SEZ and Pritam

Banerjee, Senior Director, Corporate Public Policy, Deutsche Post DHL. According to them, to strengthen the logistics services in India, the need is to set up a Nodal Body under the Cabinet secretary to bring in proper coordination between several ministries involved with this sector.