Business
Hannover Messe to focus on Make in India, Skill India: Sushma
New Delhi, March 26
The Hannover Messe fair,
the world's largest industrial trade fair, which Prime Minister Narendra
Modi is to inaugurate next month, will provide the perfect platform to
showcase India's engineering prowess and reinforce government
initiatives like 'Make in India', 'Skill India' and 'Digital India',
External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj said here on Thursday.
Addressing
the Growth Net Summit 2015, the minister said India was "ideally placed
to emerge as a powerful player in global manufacturing landscape and
export markets using our unique advantage of 3D - Democracy, Demography
and Demand.
"At the centre of this endeavour is the 'Make in
India' campaign. However, leveraging the 3D advantage requires
appropriate public policy and also a positive external environment in
terms of trade and investment opportunities."
She said the commerce wings in the Indian missions abroad are being re-energized as the focal point of commercial activity.
"The 'Make in India' programme for instance, was launched and promoted with much vigour by our missions abroad."
She
said the commerce wings, besides helping bring exporters and importers
together for mutual economic benefits, were also playing a role in
resolving trade disputes that sometimes arise.
"By enhancing and
widening the available markets for Indian producers, as well as finding
them new avenues to source supplies from, our missions are making a
direct and important contribution to the economic growth of the
country," she said.
She enumerated the steps the government has
taken for ease of doing business, including fast tracking clearances for
projects, and also the government's policies like Swachh Bharat, Skill
India, and Digital India.
She said that as part of the prime
minister's vision of co-operative federalism by involving states, her
ministry has created a "States Division" which is responsible for
liaisoning with the states for all trade and investment related
purposes.
"This will do away with the traditional
one-size-fits-all approach and give a more local-needs based dimension
to our foreign policy. We have also asked all our IFS officers to
specialise in understanding the needs of two States of their choice,"
she said.
Another move toward inclusive approach to development was to increase interaction with the Indian diaspora abroad.
She
said the prime minister has launched "a new form, a higher level of
dialogue with the Indian diaspora across the world. He has reached out
to them, and they have reciprocated his warmth and friendship".
"Our
diaspora could be our most valuable partner in implementation of the
flagship schemes of the government be it Swacch Bharat Abhiyan, Clean
Ganga, skill development, smart cities or GIAN (Global Initiative of
Academic Network)."