The Hindu : National : Higher education: Centre to seek views on FDI

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Thursday, Sep 07, 2006

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Higher education: Centre to seek views on FDI

Special Correspondent

New Delhi: The Union Government plans to seek a broad consensus on the prospects of foreign direct investment in higher education and will soon finalise a consultation paper on the issue.

Disclosing this here on Wednesday, Commerce Ministry Special Secretary G.K. Pillai said the consultation paper would be posted on the Ministry's website by this weekend.

Speaking to newspersons at a conference on services exports, organised by the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII), he said the paper aimed at getting the broad trend of public opinion.

Cabinet approval

The consultation paper, which would be an overview of education policies, would ultimately be submitted for approval to the Cabinet. He noted that nearly $4 billion were being outsourced from India for higher education.

The proposals made by the legal fraternity to open legal services too were being considered.Addressing the conference, Commerce and Industry Minister Kamal Nath called for raising the growth rate of services exports to at least 15 per cent. "In view of India's large work force and employment needs, the services should grow faster than the current rate," he said while urging leading services sector organisations to broaden and diversify the content of the export basket.

For boosting exports

Mr. Kamal Nath pointed out that the services sector was growing at nearly 10 per cent annually and focus should be on new areas, besides IT, to boost exports. He felt the service-oriented special economic zones (SEZs) coming up across the country would generate 12.5 lakh jobs in 18 months. Describing the countryas a hub of economic activities, he said there was need for a domestic-driven growth, which would further drive the exports of services.

The Minister highlighted the need to strengthen the manufacturing sector and said, "it is essential that the manufacturing sector contribution to our GDP increases from 17 to 25 per cent."

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