Union minister of commerce & industry Piyush Goyal, chairing a review meeting of the Steering Committee on Advancing Local value-add & Exports (SCALE), on Thursday informed that out of the global auto component trade of $1.3 trillion, India’s share is $15 billion and the government aims to double its exports to $30 billion by 2026.
Goyal said that the government has a slew of Production Linked Incentives (PLI) schemes in various sectors which have induced post-Covid industrial and economic recovery.

He said there has been very positive industry feedback about the various PLIs announced by the Centre. It may be noted that some of these PLIs in the textile, automotive and white goods sectors are already beginning to encourage more growth. Deliberating on ways to enhance competitiveness and leverage the untapped potential of Indian industries to fulfill Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s vision of an ‘Aatmanirbhar Bharat’, Goyalasked all stakeholders to have the best quality products and world-class labs for testing as India embarks on an unprecedented global trade engagement.

Advertisement

Underlining the need to reduce logistics costs to make factory products competitive in global markets, he asked the states to reduce state-specific disabilities. The Commerce Minister also urged the states to undertake suitable amendments in labour laws to take advantage of PLIsinduced manufacturing growth. “Cost of doing business needs to be assessed state-wise,” he remarked. Goyal also asked industry captains to take advantage of low labour costs and reap the benefits of India’s huge scale and demographic dividend.

Pointing out that every country cannot be good in all sectors, Goyal said India has to choose niche and specific areas and excel in it. “Take comparative cost advantage in key areas,” he said.

Goyal identified key focus areas for improvement to achieve robust growth of the manufacturing sector. These areas include land, skill development, government & industry partnership and compliance with model labour law. Encouraging the industry to go for technology transfer and indigenisation of chip manufacturing, Goyal said there are great possibilities emerging in new sectors.

“Huge opportunities exist in dronessector,” he said while stressing proper regulations to be worked out by the ministry of civil aviation for the growth of this niche sector. Calling upon the electronics industry to aim for local value addition in TV manufacturing from the current 28% to 43.7%, Goyal said the Set-Top Box (STB), CCTV, mobile handsets, and television manufacturers should come out with plans on how localisation can be achieved.

Goyal lauded the air conditioner manufacturers for achieving a great degree of localisation and also switching over to CFL-free cooling technology. On the switch over to clean energy in the automobiles sector, the Minister stressed ramping up indigenous production of magnets and electric motors.