Cabinet approves plan for special focus on 12 services sectors

The Union Cabinet on Wednesday approved the proposal of the Department of Commerce to pay focused attention to 12 identified "Champion Services Sectors" for promoting their development.

"A dedicated fund of Rs 5,000 crore has been proposed to be established to support initiatives for sectoral action plans of the champion sectors," an official statement said.

"The cabinet has also directed the ministries/departments concerned with these sectors to utilize the available draft sectoral plans to finalize and implement the action plans for the identified champion services sectors," it added.

The concerned services are Information Technology and Information Technology-enabled Services (IT and ITeS), tourism and hospitality services, medical value travel, transport and logistics services, accounting and finance services, audio visual services, legal services, communication services, construction and related engineering services, environmental services, financial services and education services, the statement said.

Addressing the media after the cabinet meeting, Commerce Minister Suresh Prabhu said: "We have identified them on the basis of global research to find out which are the sectors that have the potential to grow...like for example in medical tourism, we have a huge advantage."

The initiative will enhance the competitiveness of India's service sectors, help create more jobs and promote exports to global markets, the statement said.

--IANS

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