Self-reliant India to focus on ‘make for world’
THE PM SAID A SERIES OF ECONOMIC REFORMS LIKE ONE NATION-ONE TAX, INSOLVENCY AND BANKRUPTCY CODE CAUGHT ATTENTION OF THE GLOBAL INVESTORS
NEWDELHI:PRIME Minister Narendra Modi on Saturday cited a robust inflow of foreign direct investment (FDI) during the last financial year and said it reflects how global firms were looking at India as a major investment destination. He said the country is shifting its focus from Make in India to Make for World through the government’s Atmanirbhar Bharat Abhiyan (Self-reliant India campaign).
In his Independence Day speech, Modi said a series of economic reforms like one nationone tax, Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code, and the bank merger have caught attention of the global investors. He credited the reforms for attracting FDI.
According to the Reserve Bank of India data, there was about $74.4 billion FDI flow in 2019-20 and marked a 20% jump compared to the previous year.
Modi said India should be
“vocal for local” and asked citizens to glorify Indian products to promote Atmanirbhar Bharat. Referring to N-95 masks, personal protective equipment, and ventilators, Modi said Indian entrepreneurs manufactured them to meet the domestic demand amid the Covid-19 pandemic and also exported them.
Modi said India is striving to achieve overall economic growth and become self-reliant, but humanity remains its ethos. “India has always believed that the entire world is one family. While we focus on economic growth and development, humanity must retain a central role in this process and our journey,” he said. “When we start sourcing things from abroad, then our capabilities start depleting and consequently, they get completely destroyed over generations. We need to preserve them and enhance that calibre of ours.”
Modi said the government has launched over ~110 lakh crore National Infrastructure Pipeline (NIP) to boost the economy and create jobs. “In order to rapidly modernise India, there is a need to give a new direction to overall infrastructure development,” he said. He added over 7,000 projects under NIP have been identified.
“This will be, in a way, a new revolution in the field of infrastructure. This is the time to end silos in infrastructure. There is a plan to connect the entire country with multi-model connectivity infrastructure.” He said NIP will play a crucial role in overcoming the impact of Covid-19 on the economy and trigger growth.
The Covid-19 pandemic and 68-day nationwide lockdown to check its spread adversely impacted the economic growth, which was already sluggish. India’s gross domestic product (GDP) slowed to 4.2% in fiscal 2019-20, the lowest in 11 years. It followed precipitous growth contractions reported by the US and European countries after the pandemic closed businesses, signalling a period of recession. The US economy posted a secondquarter contraction of 9.5%, the worst figure on record.
India is expected to report its April-june GDP numbers by the end of this month. Economists expect the economy to contract by at least 5% this year (2020-21) especially because of the hard lockdown for two full months of the quarter (April and May).
The government on December 31 last year unveiled the NIP aiming to make India a $5 trillion economy by 2024-25. The focus of the pipeline is to accelerate growth and create employment. The NIP is under execution as 40% of the projects worth ~44 lakh crore are at various stages of implementation, officials said requesting anonymity.
Modi emphasised the need to import raw material and export value-added products. “How long can the raw material be sent out of our country and finished products imported?. Atmnirbhar Bharat does not mean only reducing imports, it means enhancing our capacity, our creativity, our skills.”
Divakar Vijayasarathy, founder and managing partner at consultancy firm DVS Advisors LLP, said Modi called for Make in India in his first Independence Day speech in 2014. He said Modi has rebranded it to Make for the World to make India as a manufacturing powerhouse, which China did exceptionally well over the years. “It is high time that this strategy should be in place .... But Covid-19 and China’s attitude towards other nations have presented one more opportunity to take advantage of the negative perception of China.”