India to Emerge as Manufacturing Hub: Anand Sharma

Agra: The Indian government has taken a number of measures and effectively put in place "single-window clearance" mechanism to make the country a manufacturing hub in the next 10 years, Commerce and Industry Minister Anand Sharma said.

"We have effectively put in place the single-window mechanism. Land issue has been addressed," Sharma said at the partnership summit organised here by the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) in association with the federal ministry of commerce and industry and Uttar Pradesh government.

Sharma said the government has set a target to create 100 million skilled jobs and increase the share of manufacturing in the country's gross domestic product (GDP) to 26 percent in 10 years from around 16 percent now.

He said the National Manufacturing Policy would help achieve these targets.

"The national manufacturing policy is not just on paper... now it is being implemented," he said.

Sharma, who also holds the textiles portfolio, said the government was taking measures to revive economic growth.

"High growth is not an option but an imperative. The larger issue is not just numbers but the social dimension. If these issues are not addressed, the social cost will be unbearable," he said.

Vice President M. Hamid Ansari inaugurated the 19th edition of the partnership summit.

Sharma said the government's policy has to be focused on creating jobs as nearly 200 million people were estimated to join workforce in a decade. "One decade of high growth is not going to change the things. We need many more decades of high growth," he said.

The Indian minister emphasized on the need for more coordination among the countries across the world to address the issues of unemployment and economic slowdown.

He said that out of global labour force of 3.3 billion, 200 million people were unemployed and over 900 million earned less than $2 a day.

"Over the next decade, 400 million new entrants will enter the labour market and we are faced with a challenge of creating 600 million jobs globally," he said.

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