Stable Policies Boost India's Manufacturing Growth

New Delhi, Oct 6 (PTI) Stable policies and further improvement in the ease of doing business in states will help significantly boost the country's manufacturing sector's growth, according to experts.

They also said that sectors like renewable energy, particularly in the solar segment and electronics, hold huge potential to promote domestic manufacturing and create thousands of jobs.

The government has already taken a series of steps like rolling out the production-linked incentive scheme (PLI) for 14 sectors, tweaking tariffs and issuance of mandatory quality control orders for different products to support domestic players and increase manufacturing activities, they added.

"Stable policies and further promotion of ease of doing business at the state level will help significantly boost the country's manufacturing sector growth," Sujoy Ghosh, vice president and country managing director, First Solar, said.

The Make in India initiative provides a window of opportunity for companies looking at alternative destinations to set up units, he added.

"India offers huge opportunities for manufacturing. Companies can set up units to cater to domestic needs as well as for exports. For example, in the renewable energy sector, the country has great opportunities. We have just started, it is a marathon," Ghosh said.

He also said that skilled manpower and government measures will help attract investments from both domestic and foreign players.

"Backward integration, localising the entire value chain, enhanced industry-academia collaboration, and ring-fencing the domestic market from imports will help the renewable energy sector to promote domestic manufacturing," Ghosh suggested.

At the capital front too, he said that constraints have eased in the country, and a lot of capital is available globally.

"Companies are preferring India as an alternate destination," he noted.

Sharing similar views, another expert said that the PLI scheme is helping the country reduce dependence on China.

The country is also imposing anti-dumping and anti-circumvention duties on goods that are being tuned or subsidies by the neighbouring country.

Steps like the adoption of international standards, using risk-based regulations, and modern infrastructure development will help further improve the quality of goods manufactured and exported from India, economic think tank GTRI said.

The Global Trade Research Initiative (GTRI) also recommended support to small and medium enterprises, avoiding quality control orders becoming non-tariff barriers, regulatory impact assessment, developing globally acceptable standards and inking mutual recognition pacts with trading partners to strengthen India's quality systems.