India’s manufacturing sector is now running at full steam despite disruptions caused by the pandemic and the country wants to help the entire world in COVID-19 vaccine production efforts, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said on Thursday, while pitching for fresh investments from Canadian businesses.
“I want to ask you ‘What do you think about before investing in a country’… Does the country have a viable democracy, Does it have political stability, Does it have investment and business friendly policies, Does it have transparency in governance, Does it have a skilled talent pool, Does it have a large market?” the PM said, beginning his keynote address at a conference organised by Invest India and the Indian High Commission in Canada.
“These are different questions you may be asking. The undisputed answer to all these questions is one – India. There is an opportunity for everyone – institutional investors, manufacturers, supporters of innovations and infrastructure companies,” he said, urging Canadian firms to consider collaborations with India in education and agriculture, apart from investments in manufacturing and services.
“In the post-COVID world, you will often hear of various kind of problems – manufacturing, supply chain and so on.
‘Shown resilience’
Problems are natural. However, India has not let those problems be. We showed resilience and emerged as a land of solutions… Today, our manufacturing is running at full steam,” Mr. Modi said.
Stressing that the government has set up a dedicated empowered group of secretaries to ensure high-level attention and hand-holding for investors, the PM said that the government was pro-actively monetising assets across sectors such as airports, railways, highways and power transmission lines. Real estate investment trusts and infrastructure investment trusts had also been fully enabled for monetisation of public and private assets.
“We have given relief and stimulus packages for the poor and small businesses, but we have also used the opportunity to undertake structural reforms to ensure more productivity and prosperity. A trinity of reforms in education, labour and agriculture, will together impact almost every Indian. We have reformed old labour and agriculture laws to ensure greater participation of the private sector, while strengthening government safety nets,” he said, underlining that these reforms would create a win-win situation for entrepreneurs as well as the country’s hard-working people.
