India's Export Competitiveness: Goyal Emphasizes Quality over Subsidies

New Delhi, Oct 16 (PTI) Commerce and Industry Minister Piyush Goyal on Wednesday asked the industry to focus on making high quality products to tap global markets as export competitiveness will not come from government subsidies or support.

He also said that the government is putting its effort to nudge industry to get into the manufacturing of high quality products as it is a "tough" task to get industry to accept that they should be making quality goods.

Initially, the government faced a huge amount of opposition from the industry on quality control orders.

"Our export competitiveness is not going to come from subsidies or government support. It is not going to come from our closing the doors to the rest of the world. If we are looking at self-reliant India, it can only happen when India will be self-confident and that confidence will only come when we all decide that quality is not our job, it is our duty," the minister said.

He added that if the Indian industry is not competitive in any product, that can be imported the industry has to work towards competitiveness where it has a comparative advantage with other nations.

The government is taking a series of steps such as rolling out Quality Control Orders (QCOs) to boost manufacturing in the country.

Till 2014, he said, only 14 QCOs covering 106 products were issued, but in the last 10 years, the government has issued as many as 174 such orders covering 732 products to ensure that more and more people will become aligned with better quality standards.

These orders help curb the import of sub-standard products, prevent unfair trade practices and ensure the safety and well-being of consumers as well as the environment.

Under the order, an item cannot be produced, sold, traded, imported and stocked unless it bears the Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS) mark.

Violation of the provision of the BIS Act can attract imprisonment of up to two years or a fine of at least Rs 2 lakh for the first offence. In case of second and subsequent offences, the fine will increase to a minimum of Rs 5 lakh and extend up to 10 times of the value of goods or articles.

QCOs are issued in accordance with the WTO Agreement on Technical Barriers to Trade.

He also said that manufacturing high quality goods helps boost economic activities, generating jobs and increasing exports.

"India will have to aspire to become a manufacturer of high quality goods and services and it should be recognised globally," Goyal said.

Citing an example of the pharma industry, the minister also urged the big industry players to handhold and support MSME units in this area.

"We still have a lot of work to do in terms of getting industry aligned with these QCOs," he said adding India was not able to become a partner of a protocol in the pharma sector as "every single time when we try to join that protocol, which has certain strict conditionalities attached to it, there will be an opposition from those (industries) who would be looking at short cuts".

The minister urged the industry to participate in the BIS (Bureau of Indian Standards) committees through their skilled technical manpower.