The Hindu : Business : Centre committed to revive manufacturing sector

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Centre committed to revive manufacturing sector

Special Correspondent

Anand Sharma to meet State industry ministers soon

To re-energise inter-State council
Joint efforts for skill development

— PHOTO: V. SUDERSHAN

BACK TO BUSINESS: Union Minister for Commerce and Industry Anand Sharma (centre) with CII members (from left) Venu Srinivasan, President, Chandrajit Banerjee, Director General, Rahul Bajaj, Chairman, Bajaj Auto, and S. K. Roongta, Chairman, SAIL, prior to a meeting in New Delhi on Thursday.

NEW DELHI: Union Commerce and Industry Minister Anand Sharma on Thursday said he would soon convene a meeting of industry ministers to discuss with the State governments the problems being faced by the manufacturing sector and get their feedback on the steps to be taken to address this situation.

Interacting with leading industrialists at a CII-organised presentation along with the new Commerce Secretary, Rahul Khullar, and Secretary, Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion (DIPP), Ajay Shankar, Mr. Sharma said he would take steps to re-energise the inter-State council for wider consultations on important trade-related matters.

CII presentation

In its presentation, CII touched upon the areas like the present economic and exports scenarios and the ways to push forward, present state of play of the World Trade Organisation, the need to attract foreign direct investments and increasing investments, particularly in physical infrastructure, manufacturing and services sector.

Mr. Sharma said the Government was committed to the revival of the manufacturing sector and promotion of employment generation. “We need to encourage the manufacturing sector and industrial activity for providing more employment. The Government and industry should make joint efforts for skill-development for employment generation,” he said. Several industrialists raised the issue of not having single-window clearance system, especially in the manufacturing sector.

The Minister assured them that such problems would be taken care of soon and the government would try to have simplified procedures for resolving the grievances in this regard.

Mr. Sharma said that the previous stimulus packages unveiled by the government had started showing signs of pushing the economic growth and if need be the government would not hesitate to put in place some other steps to kick-start the manufacturing, services and other sectors.

As regards multilateral trade issues, Mr. Sharma said India was committed to the early resumption of the WTO Doha round negotiations, as there was a need to have a rule-based multilateral global trading system and the government would continue to take inputs from various stakeholders in the country.

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