India should focus on sunrise sectors to stay competitive: NITI Aayog CEO

Niti Aayog CEO Amitabh Kant on Saturday said the government is taking a series of measures to make India highly competitive in the global economy and stressed that the country must get into the sunrise areas of growth.

Addressing the FICCI Annual Convention, Kant said the government is also working towards bringing down the cost of logistics.

"The government is taking a series of measures to make India highly competitive in the global economy," he said.

Kant further added that the production-linked incentive (PLI) scheme for 10 key sectors, which the government announced last month, should spur growth in manufacturing in a big way.

"The objective was to provide a major impetus to manufacturing and exports, and this (PLI scheme) is one of the biggest schemes that the government has come out with to support the private sector in manufacturing.

"It is a USD 26-billion scheme, which provides production-linked incentives in 10 champion sectors and this five years of support should spur growth in manufacturing in a big way," he said.

Kant also said the PLI scheme is a focused scheme, it is not an investment scheme, it is not an investment subsidy scheme.

"There are sunrise areas of growth where India must get into," he said.

"To make Indian manufacturers globally competitive, we should be able to boost our exports and give rise to economies of scale and we should be able to produce cutting-edge products," he said.

Kant also noted that PLI schemes for electronics, mobile and active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs)sectors have already been announced.

"And, the PLI scheme for other sectors is going through the process of approval," he said.

The 10 sectors, for which the government has announced the PLI scheme, are related to advance chemistry cell battery, electronic/technology products, automobile, pharmaceutical, and telecom and networking products.

They also include textiles products, food products, high-efficiency solar PV modules, white goods (ACs and LED), and speciality steel.