Jaishankar in Cyprus pitches for India becoming manufacturing hub; 5 trillion economy by 2025

External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar here on Friday said India is on the path of becoming a manufacturing hub for the global community and intended to become a 5 trillion economy by 2025.

Addressing a business event organised by the High Commission of India in Cyprus, Jaishankar said New Delhi and Nicosia had a lot of potentials to increase the bilateral trade between the two countries.

Jaishankar who is on a three-day visit to Cyprus, while addressing the business event said India and Cyprus last year had bilateral trade of about $214 million dollars and were confident to reach the last year's figure much earlier this year.

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The minister, who is here to celebrate the 60 years of bilateral relations between India and Cyprus, said technology and infrastructure progress made in the last few years created an appetite for world investment in India.

He said India and Cyprus had an active institutional mechanism in Economic cooperation.

The minister stressed that Cyprus is the 10th largest investor in India with an accumulative investment of $12 billion during the last 20 years.

India exported pharmaceutical products such as hydroxychloroquine and paracetamol, iron, steel, ceramic products, and electrical machinery to Cyprus during the Covid-19 pandemic.

"As we look at the basket of trade, clearly there is the potential to explore more as India gets prominent in the global economy. India's trade policies and reform are competitive in the global community. The country has emerged as one of the strong destinations for FDI," Jaishankar said.

"India has a strategy to position itself as a much greater trader, manufacturer, and strong service provide after the pandemic," he said.

The minister said India used the Covid-19 period to carry out ambitious economic reforms such as the "Make in India" initiative or the "Atma Nirbhar Bharat" programme, which is a self-reliance programme, promoting capacity building within India.

He said the country exported vaccines to more than 102 countries, including the United Nations Peacekeeping Forces, during the Covid era.

"We believe that in the post-covid era, the global economy will be looking for a resilient and reliable supply chain. It will be looking for multiplicity in manufacturing and industry," the EAM said.

He said that the lessons that India took from Covid-19 were to de-risk the global economy.

"India has a strategy to position itself as a much greater trader, manufacturer, and strong service provider after the pandemic."

The minister stressed that Cyprus is the 10th largest investor in India with an accumulative investment of $12 billion during the last 20 years.

"The reforms were taken by the government in a much more focused way that intended to make India a manufacturing hub and to emerge a 5 trillion economy by 2025," Jiashankar said.

The minister drew attention to the success of the Product Linked Incentive (PLI) programme, which has a certain set of domains, and said the country had "pushed for investment in those domains through incentives with the idea of increasing production in India".

Jaishankar, who quoted Prime Minister Narendra Modi advocating for a "lifestyle change" during the address to the World Economic Forum (WEF), said the PM observed that during the Covid-19 era the world focused on interventions that were quantitative easing but "India was actually busy paving the way for reforms".

The minister said India used the Covid-19 period to carry out ambitious economic reforms such as the "Make in India" initiative or the "Atma Nirbhar Bharat" programme, which is a self-reliance programme, promoting capacity building within India.

"The reforms were taken by the government in a much more focused way that intended to make India a manufacturing hub and to emerge a 5 trillion economy by 2025," Jiashankar said.

The minister drew attention to the success of the Product Linked Incentive (PLI) programme, which has a certain set of domains, and said the country had "pushed for investment in those domains through incentives with the idea of increasing production in India".

He said that the biggest projects for India at that time were to modernise physical and digital infrastructure, which got unprecedented momentum during Covid-19".

India last year received $81 billion as Foreign Direct Investment (FDI), and boasted 100 unicorns now, of which 40 were products of 2021 alone. He said that the country now had the third-largest number of unicorns.

The minister emphasised that India crossed the $400-billion mark in exports this year and had set the target of $470 billion in export -- for Europe $90 billion -- this year.

"Larger trade presence, stronger trade performance will clearly have a significance for a lot of other services and industry, particularly for shipping."

Stressing that anything that happens in one corner of the world impacts another part of the world, Jiashankar said the global community experienced this first during the Covid-19 pandemic and then during the Ukraine conflict.

"Today the efficiency and delivery of global supply is a common concern for all countries in the world," he said.

"The main anxiety of India today is the concern for energy, both in terms of affordability and accessibility, as well as concern for food grains and fertilisers, which is not just a challenge for India but to the global community," the minister said.

He said India intended to tackle this challenge during its G-20 presidency.