Mobile firms urge govt to create policies to compete with countries

Mobile manufacturers on Friday requested the government to come up with policies that focus on competition with countries and not companies, sectoral industry body ICEA said in a statement.

Addressing a webinar on production linked incentive scheme on Friday, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said the scheme, aimed at boosting domestic manufacturing and exports, is expected to increase the country's production by USD 520 billion in the next five years.

The scheme was first notified to boost mobile manufacturing in the country, and later on, it was extended to other sectors after seeing traction of many global players in the segment, including Samsung, Apple's contract manufacturers, Dixon, and Lava.

"It is imperative to offset the disabilities vis-a-vis other countries and encourage Global Value Chains (GVC's) and domestic industry players to set-up manufacturing facilities in India. We need to build policies to compete with countries and not companies," ICEA Chairman Pankaj Mohindroo said.

India Cellular and Electronics Association (ICEA), which represents companies like Apple, Winstron, Lava, Vivo etc, in its recommendation to the Prime Minister Office and Niti Aayog said that there should be long term policies to address disabilities, stable tax regime aligned with the phased manufacturing plan, and review GST regime to boost domestic demand in the short term, among others.

"We are confident that on the basis of such forward-looking policy interventions, India should be able to focus its efforts to capture the investment opportunities originating from various global as well as domestic stakeholders to fulfil the Hon'ble Prime Minister's vision to establish India as World's No 1 manufacturing hub. If we have to achieve USD 1 trillion of exports, electronics will be the largest contributor to it," Mohindroo said.