Union Minister for Commerce and Industry Anand Sharma on Thursday warned the developed and developing countries against adopting protectionist trends as they would prove counter-productive in the long-run, deepening recession and delaying a solution to the current financial crisis.
The present economic crisis mandated countries to step out and engage more, dismantle barriers and ensure free flow of goods and services. There was a need to evolve multilateral agreements to address past distortions that were heavily loaded in favour of the developed world. “After the Doha Round of WTO that suffered a setback and failed to make any headway, we met in Geneva recently to seriously introspect and evolve a way forward for tackling trade flow,” he said.
Mr. Sharma formally inaugurated the 18 edition of the Partnership Summit 2012, organised by the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) here on Thursday. As many as 43 countries, many represented by Ministerial delegations, are meeting during the two-day summit to chalk out what they called `innovative partnerships' to accelerate growth by addressing concerns like climate change. The United States was represented by a high-power business team led by three Senators.
The Minister said the situation where the U.S. and the European Union were considered the two pillars was no more. “Multilateralism will guide the global change and it has to be sustained,” he said. It was matter of time before emerging countries overtook the GDPs of the top seven nations. Even as the global economy was faced with European sovereign debt crisis and global cross currents, the Indian Government had come out with the National Manufacturing Policy that could be “a game changer”. The policy, envisaged a single window mechanism for integrated growth with the creation of seven manufacturing and investment zones along the Delhi-Mumbai corridor.
The country was aiming at increasing the contribution of the manufacturing sector to the GDP from 16 per cent to 26 per cent with possible creation of 100 million jobs. “This is the largest infrastructure project conceived anywhere and will embrace 43 per cent of the country's population” he said.
A similar manufacturing and investment hub was proposed in Andhra Pradesh which, a senior State Minister later said, would be spread over 5,000 hectares. Singapore Emeritus Minister Goh Chok Tong said India could play a much bigger role in the Asian economy and Singapore was willing to extend necessary cooperation in this direction. Sheikha Lubna bint Khalid Al Qasimi, Minister for Trade, United Arab Emirates, said the present level of UAE investments in India was $2 billion and efforts were on to identify more sectors for possible partnership.
Chief Minister Kiran Reddy, Gita Irawan Wirjawan (Indonesia), Omar Hazrat Zakhilwal (Afghanistan) and Rishad Bathiudeen (Sri Lanka) also addressed the gathering.
