Industry has to compete on everything as tariff safety temporary: DIPP Secy

Centre and the states need to work together to provide necessary support to industry to enhance their competitiveness, said Secretary Ramesh Abhishek

The domestic industry has to compete on everything to boost manufacturing as the protection provided by the government in terms of raising tariffs is temporary in nature, a top official said Monday.

Secretary in the Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion (DIPP) Secretary Ramesh Abhishek said that the Centre and the states need to work together to provide necessary support to industry to enhance their competitiveness.

"Lot of work has been done on removing, for example, inverted duty structures. Lot of protection is being given to the domestic industry in terms of more tariffs but this is not something that can last forever.

"All this protection is temporary. Ultimately, we have to compete on everything... to make industry competitive, the governments have to provide the necessary support," he said.

He was speaking at a CII-DIPP national forum.

Abhishek said that the new industrial policy, which would be soon approved by the Cabinet, talks about increasing competitiveness of industry, skilling of youth, and adoption of modern technologies.

Speaking at the function, Commerce and Industry Minister Suresh Prabhu said that to incentivise and encourage Indian companies to compete globally, the ministry is working on various fronts like creation of new policies, improving ease of doing business, and scrapping irrelevant regulations.

He said that India has not realised its full potential of exports and cooperation with neighbouring countries like Bangladesh and Sri Lanka are must to boost shipments.