The Indian government plans to encourage Indian manufacturing drive by holding the ‘Make in India’ week in Mumbai in February 2016. It is hoped by the Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion (DIPP) that the initiative will motivate the domestic companies, as well as increase the share of manufacturing in India’s GDP to 25 percent from 17 percent. Over 1,000 companies will be participating in this event as per DIPP secretary Amitabh Kant. He further stressed that, “Despite the global slowdown we must continue to liberalise economy and grow foreign direct investment by 30%…We have vigorously opened up economy for FDI.” He also stressed that this initiative will be key to the growth of the manufactuing sector and by focussing on labour intensive segments, it will generate employment as well. He further stated that research and development is one of the focus area of this initiative. He stated that this is the ideal time for India to obtain state-of-the-art technology from European countries to manufacture hybrid as well as green automobiles. The ‘Make in India week’ will take place from February 13-18. It will be focussing on 10 key sectors which include aerospace and defence, automobile, construction, food processing, infrastructure, pharmaceuticals, information technology and textiles.
