How India can become export hub for the world?

By Kazim Rizvi

"The government should look at incentivising export-driven manufacturing in the country as it will be a key contributor to job growth. Towards this, we expect that the Budget would provide measures to improve ease of doing business rankings. How can we make India an export hub for the world? How can we ensure that products made in India to be the most competitive? How can we incentivise the global supply chain to shift to making in India? The Prime Minister has rightly identified exports as a key enabler for economic growth and its time that the government delivers mechanisms to attract manufacturing. Certain sectors, such as the electronic hardware industry, which have a significant value-add to the economy, should be further promoted and classified as a strategically important area. Right from ensuring affordable and uninterrupted power supply to enhancing the skill-set of labour, from easing the customs processes to simplifying land acquisition, as well as reducing the time taken to set up and operationalise plants - these are some of the measures that must be delivered on to make India a more friendly environment for export-driven manufacturing. Moreover, we must utilise our own natural resources to build India’s domestic manufacturing ecosystem. Increasing the budget on R&D, skilling and training of labour are important. And finally, the government should rationalise taxes and simplify it further, along with supporting to MSME’s to upgrade their manufacturing processes."

The author is Founding Editor - The Dialogue.