'Manufacturing sector needs to contribute more to GDP'

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SME Times News Bureau | 23 Mar, 2010
Expressing concern that the share of the manufacturing sector in the GDP has not picked up since 1990s, Commerce Minister Anand Sharma on Monday said that the government wants the sector's contribution to increase to at least 22 percent from the present 16-17 percent.

"We want manufacturing share of the India's GDP to grow by at least six percentage points more to 22 percent," Sharma told reporters on the sidelines of the Asia Gas Partnership Summit, organised by FICCI, in New Delhi.

The manufacturing sector, which accounts for about 80 percent of the weightage in the index of industrial production (IIP), saw output grow by 17.9 percent year-on-year in January.

The commerce minister expressed optimism that the total FDI inflows this fiscal will the same as in the previous year's at $ 27 bn.

The FDI inflows to the country were impacted since October 2008 due to the global credit squeeze and it was only in October this fiscal the inflows started improving. FDI was USD 2.33 billion in October 2009, about 56 percent up over the same month last year, while in November it surged by 60 percent to USD 1.73 billion. The increase was 13 percent to USD 1.54 billion in December.

On the issue of bio-fuels, Sharma said India was against the use of food grains in bio-fuel as there was a global food shortage and 850 million people in the world sleep hungry.