PHD Chamber suggests Ease of doing Business rankings at District Level and enhanced Domestic Capacity Building to become Aatma Nirbhar Bharat

No.PR-179 July 28, 2020 New Delhi PHD Chamber suggests Ease of doing Business rankings at District Level and enhanced Domestic Capacity Building to become Aatma Nirbhar Bharat India has immense potential to become USD 100 billion FDI destination by 2022 Dr D K Aggarwal, President, PHD Chamber of Commerce and Industry in Virtual Interaction with the Hon’ble Union Minister of Commerce and Industry, Shri Piyush Goyal with trade and industry associations has suggested to launch District Level Ease of Doing Business (EoDB) rankings to promote healthy competition in more than 700 districts in the country and to ensure that smaller towns and districts become more business-friendly in the coming times. The focus should be put upon One District One Product (ODOP) Scheme that aims to give boost to the traditional industries and enable the people to gain expertise in one product. The scheme has the potential to contribute towards the growth of states’ GSDP and raise the quality of the products, said Dr D K Aggarwal. ODOP scheme will help improve the quality of the product, transform the product through packaging and branding and to strengthen the initiative of ODOP to national and international level, said Dr D K Aggarwal. The ODOP scheme can help in preserving and developing local skills and craft, provide significant exposure to the Micro, Small & Medium Enterprises (MSMEs) and generate gainful employment opportunities across the states, said Dr D K Aggarwal. In the post-COVID scenario, there would be noticeable changes in the global supply-chains and India should focus on capturing a significant share in the world economic system, said Dr D K Aggarwal. To become AatmaNirbhar Bharat, it is now imperative for our country to reduce import content and divert trade towards friendly nations while focusing on enhancing indigenous production and domestic capacity building, said Dr D K Aggarwal. India should completely stop the entry of products from China especially in the current difficult time amid pandemic COVID-19 which may hurt the growth prospects of indigenous manufacturers, divert trade towards friendly economies and significantly scale up industrial production, said Dr D K Aggarwal. At this juncture, bolstering manufacturing at competitive costs should be a key focus area for the Government, said Dr Aggarwal. India should take advantage of the global supply chain disruptions and become a global manufacturing and exporting hub, going forward. Prosperity of businesses facilitates creation of jobs and generation of incomes which improves the country’s position in socioeconomic and business rankings in global charts. At this juncture, it becomes important to further reduce the cost of doing business in India and attract significant foreign investments and achieve the goal set by our Hon’ble Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi ji of a USD 5 trillion economy by 2024-25. India has immense potential to become a USD 100 billion FDI destination by 2022, said Dr. Aggarwal Cost competitiveness of our businesses enterprises should be enhanced and a level playing field should be created. The Government should focus on further reducing the cost of doing business in the country including the costs of capital, costs of compliances, costs of logistics, costs of land and availability of land and costs of labour, said Dr D K Aggarwal. The golden opportunity, which has arisen because of many companies from Japan, USA, Korea and Europe are wanting to shift their manufacturing facilities out of China. India should use this opportunity by offering Red Carpet and providing the most favourable terms for setting up manufacturing bases in India. Single window service should be set up to give clearance for all the permissions to ensure faster and efficient action and decision-making along with contract enforceability and other legal reforms; flexible labour laws; and reforms like digitizing land records and giving land for long term lease. Further, indigenous production capacities with more and more deployment of labour, capital and technology should be focussed. The emphasis of domestic production should move forward from labour intensive to capital intensive to high end technology products in the coming times. Over the years, China has been resorting to unfair trade practices, dumping low cost products and rerouting such products via various other economies especially ASEAN economies in India’s expanding market with large consumer base. India should consider to review and reset its Free Trade Agreements (FTAs) signed during the last many years including those that have brought few economic benefits to the country and hurt the sentiments of the domestic industry, said Dr D K Aggarwal. Efforts should be made to make country of origin rules more tough, so that Chinese origin products cannot enter through these countries. Also, service export and other merchandise terms should be re-negotiated, which so far have not been able to protect our interests, said Dr Aggarwal. The restrictions and lockdown at national and international level has made people to realise the true power of digital platforms. In this scenario, when almost every medium to communicate was off track, digital has come out as the only way to broaden the reach of communication. At this stage, it becomes crucial for India to think big and be ready with a strategy to further improve quality, build capacity, bring in economies of scale, and improve price competitiveness to make our export products more relevant and appealing to the global buyers, said Dr Aggarwal. India should take the advantage of the digitization trend to be Vocal for Local, enhance its marketing power, promote its local brands globally and strengthen its brand image, said Dr D K Aggarwal. Going forward, deeper facilitation measures should be undertaken including improved ease of doing business at ground level, boost domestic capacity building to become Atmanirbhar Bharat with reduced costs of doing business; exploring domestic production possibilities with a level playing field; diversify the portfolio of our export products; build up a well-integrated and competitive supply chain logistics; greater support for MSMEs and making them more structurally competent and linked with global value chains, among others, said Dr Aggarwal. Further, the Government should focus on importing technology and not finished products as it will increase our economies of scale, reduce cost, ensure quality & dependability and help in maintaining speed of delivery, said Dr Aggarwal. The Hon’ble Commerce and Industry Minister was very receptive to our suggestions and appreciated the Chamber for its activities for the growth of trade and commerce in the country, said Dr D K Aggarwal. Ends Media Division PHD Chamber of Commerce and Industry