Piyush Goyal invites US businesses to manufacture in India
By TIOL News Service
NEW DELHI, FEB 18, 2021: TO further bilateral trade, Minister of Commerce and Industry Mr Piyush Goyal on Wednesday invited businesses in the United States to look at India as a manufacturing hub.
Delivering the inaugural virtual address at the annual US-India Business Council's State of US-India Business Summit, he said that trade between the two nations has grown exponentially with India setting a "modest" target of USD 500 billion.
Mr Goyal said that the two nations complement each other with the US offering technology, finance and innovation to India's large market. However, he emphasised at fair dealing in their engagement.
"The US will have to be very sensitive to price points in India, which matter to emerging economies with millions of people just coming out of poverty," he noted.
Mr Goyal also invited US businesses to look at India as a manufacturing base from where American firms can "serve a large Indian market and at the same time, also serve global markets through cost-competitive products."
"Our reforms in defence, mining, labour and agriculture sector will open up new opportunities for the American companies. India shall now have 74 per cent Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) permitted through the automatic route in insurance, which was specifically asked by the US," he noted.
On India's interest in expanding digital space with the US, the Minister said that data privacy was a major responsibility.
"There are a lot of concerns with the big tech companies, and India would like to protect its policy space," he noted.
The minister expressed interest in working closely with the new US administration and rekindling bilateral institutional mechanisms for trade, such as the Trade Policy Forum.
"As democracies wanting to give a better future to our people, we have a lot of synergy in our thinking," he added.