People globally should have confidence they can do business in India: Goyal

Commerce and Industry Minister Piyush Goyal has said that people from all over the world should have confidence that they can do business in India, buy land and expand their manufacturing

A meeting of the Board of Trade (BOT) was held on Wednesday under the chairmanship of the Commerce and Industry Minister Piyush Goyal, through video conference. The meeting focused on the new Foreign Trade Policy (FTP) (2021-26) and the strategies and measures to be taken in order to take forward domestic manufacturing and exports.

In his opening remarks, Goyal said, "Our mission is to build a stronger nation and achieve transformational goals, together with the states. He expressed confidence that with the collective efforts of all the States and Central Government, we will all work together for the better future of people of India."

The Minister appealed to the States to supplement the efforts of the Central Government.

Acknowledging the very important role of the States in the efforts, he thanked the Ministers and officials from the States for their unstinted support in these endeavours.

Goyal said, "We are looking at a truly genuine single window which can help us expand the ease of doing business. People from all over the world should have confidence that they can come and buy land, get all the necessary approvals, do participate in trade and business in India, expand in the manufacturing side and their services networks in India."

The minister said that different arms of the Government have been working to identify and support specific sectors where India has the advantages. DPIIT has identified 24 industry sectors which can add 20 lakh crore rupees worth of annual production manufacturing in India.

Goyal said that we are focusing on ease of doing business. "I have no doubt in my mind that with collective efforts of all the States and the Central Government we will all work together as one Team India for the better future of the people of India.", he added.

Goyal called for moving beyond the traditional thinking on trade, which centered around Government and Government schemes and move towards support to more free-flowing trade. He said that Trade should bank on India's strengths of quality, cost competitiveness, economies of scale, and by leveraging our comparative advantages like labour. He said that going forward, we have every possibility, to achieve the export target of a trillion dollars by 2025 and the GDP target of 5 trillion dollars.

Minister of State for Commerce and Industry Hardeep Singh Puri said that the pandemic has impacted everyone in the world but fortunately, our Prime minister realized the gravity of the situation very early and imposed the nation-wide lockdown. This helped the county slowdown spread of virus, create health infrastructure, and plan for post-Covid recovery.