Bengaluru: Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday offered support to the German industry to invest in India for boosting manufacturing share to 25 percent of the country’s GDP from 16 percent.
“As one of the biggest challenges is to productively employ our youth, we need to provide a push to manufacturing, which has stagnated at 16 percent of the GDP for several decades. This has to reach 25 percent in the short and medium term,” Modi said at an Indo-German summit in presence of visiting German Chancellor Angela Merkel.
Asserting that his government’s ‘Make in India’ initiative was aimed at widening the manufacturing base, he flagged steps taken over the last 15 months to attract foreign direct investment and increase ease of doing business.
“We have fast tracked approvals and clearances for industry and infrastructure. Transparent auction and allocation of spectrum and natural resources like coal, iron ore and other minerals have created a level-playing field for investors,” he noted.
Admitting that domestic financial resources were not sufficient to meet the country’s investment needs, Modi said to enhance flow of foreign investments, FDI limit in defence and insurance was enhanced up to 49 percent.
“We are setting up an ‘India Investment Infrastructure Fund’ with a target of Rs.20,000 crore (2.7 billion euros) flow per annum from our resources. We are also putting in place a professional team for asset management,” he said.
Noting that India had jumped 15 places in the World Economic Forum’s global competitive index, the prime minister said an American magazine had ranked the country in the first place for FDI and greenfield investments.
IANS