Commerce minister Piyush Goyal asks Japanese companies to deepen localisation in India

Tokyo: Commerce and industry minister Piyush Goyal Monday urged Japanese auto companies and capital goods firms to deepen their localisation in India, establish more research and development and Global Capability Centers (GCC) and, new capacities to come up in India, to leverage the country’s free trade agreements (FTA).

“I urge each one of you present in India and those who will be coming to deepen your localization. It will help you become even more cost competitive and actually help you supply to the rest of the world,” he said at a roundtable on capital goods, machinery and automotive, adding that the government is also willing to support the firms for innovation funding.

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“When you innovate in India, you are not only able to reduce costs…or when you set up a GCC in India, all those activities which you did during COVID from home, you can now offshore it to India,” he said, adding that the population of young people is low in Japan, he said it gives a great opportunity to collaborate with India and GCCs.

On the 10 trillion yen investment intent of Japan, he said; “I think it's time for new factories, new capacities to come up in India to serve India and make an India for the world”.

8-9 trade deals

India is in trade negotiations with at least 8-9 more groups of countries and individual nations which together account for around $15 trillion of GDP, Goyal that the country’s FTAs would eventually lead to the of global trade and help position India as a trusted partner in global value chains.

While addressing business representatives at a from India and Japan, he said India has opened its doors to the world with nine free trade agreements signed in the last four years, which cover economies with a combined GDP of $60 trillion and 38 developed countries.

The earlier trade pacts with countries, including Japan and Korea, and the ASEAN region have opened another $10 trillion of GDP.

“So today India opens up the doors to preferential market access to $70 trillion of economy. We are in negotiations with at least 8 or 9 other groups of countries or countries which will add another $15 trillion,”he said at the round table meeting with the Business Consultative Committee of the Japan Chamber of Commerce and Industry (JCCI) attends the round table meeting with Japan India Business Consultative Committee (JIBCC) .

“Basically 75% of global trade will be covered through our free trade agreements, opening India to become a part of the global value chain as a trusted partner,” he said.

Goyal is leading a large business delegation of over 200 representatives here to boost trade and investment ties between the two countries. He said that large opportunities for investments in India are there in areas like data centres, manufacturing and artificial intelligence.