PM Trade Council discusses Manufacturing strategy

New Delhi, July 20 (UNI) The Prime Minister's Council on Trade and Industry today discussed the Commerce and Industry Ministry's proposal for setting up 7-8 manufacturing investment regions to attract big ticket investments, both foreign and domestic, in the country.

Commerce and Industry Minister Kamal Nath put forth this proposal at the second meeting presided over by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh here this evening, and said the object of the proposal is to find a way to make industrial growth more labour intensive.

''Each of the 100 sq kms 7-8 investment regions, to be set up have the potential to take India's annual GDP growth from the present 8 per cent to 12 per cent, and could attract domestic and foreign investment of upto Rs 100,000 crore,'' Mr Nath told reporters here after the meeting.

The report of the National Manufacturing Competitiveness Council (NMCC), on the draft of the National Manufacturing Strategy presented by Chairman V Krishnamurthy, and the final report of the Investment Commission presented by Ratan Tata were discussed at the meeting.

Further elaborating the proposal, Mr Nath said ''in view of the fact that the country does not have adequate resources for providing top-class infrastructure, our resources and efforts should be channelised to those areas which have the potential for growth.'' ''There may be some brown-field and a few green-field areas which could be developed in different parts of the country, with world-class external infrastructure being provided by the Central and the concerned state governments,'' Mr Nath said.

The Minister said the Manufacturing and investment strategy has to be employment and Human Resource-based.

The 22 industries identified as thrust areas for the Manufacturing initiative include, textiles, leather, auto components, pharmaceuticals, IT hardware/electronics, steel, shipping and SMEs, among others.

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