Commerce and industry minister Piyush Goyal has described the budget as an inclusive programme under which benefits reach every region, segment of society and every sector. In an interview with Shambhavi Anand, the minister said the government's effort has been to promote domestic manufacturing and drive growth. Excerpts:
Never in the history of India has the country focused on growth as much as in the last three or four years. We have demonstrated to the world that for us investment in infrastructure has multi-faceted benefits and is the way to spur growth. Unlike in the past, when schemes were used to give out money for revenue expenditure, most of our schemes help create capital assets. Take into account the multiplier impact and then imagine what it can do to spur growth.This infrastructure helps to boost inv ..
I must compliment the finance ministry as they have gone into detail while assessing customs duty. Generally, the effort has been to promote domestic manufacturing. Capital goods have been given encouragement so that domestic manufacturing can have a quality impetus. We need to align ourselves with world-class quality.Duty has been increased on toys, for instance, as a lot of substandard material that was being imported into India at an abysmally low cost was often under invoiced.
We will have to look at it sector wise. Internationally, the situation is challenging. Despite that we continue to be about 8-9% growth in merchandise exports in the current year, which is phenomenal considering global trade is growing at 1%. We continue to have almost 20% growth in services. Also, tourism is another area where the government's focus is giving rich dividends. There is a focus on tourism in this budget. Around 50 tourist spots are going to be made world class.There has been a lot ..
This is something that PM Modi has been focussed on since 2014. The data you have spoken about focuses more on merchandise exports. When you add service exports then dispersion becomes much better. In merchandise exports also, our missions have become activated now and getting into competitive mode to increase their share of foreign trade. But you must bear in mind that out of 200 countries, large countries are only about 15-20. So, there is bound to be a concentration of exports in some countri ..
Source Name:-Economic Times