Government pledges to enable environment, financial support for exports

NEW DELHI: The government will help create an enabling environment and provide financial support to facilitate exports of telecom products, commerce secretary Rita Teaotia said. "I would like to assure the government is committed to facilitate exports to other parts of world," Teaotia said at a Telecom Equipment & Services Export Promotion Council event on Friday. Teaotia said the government will certainly engage in trade agreements with other countries to boost commerce. The government is focusing on boosting manufacturing, promoting research and development and setting high standards for products, she said.

According to analysts domestic manufacturers are not getting desirable market access in India despite the preferential market access policy that requires government departments to procure 30% locally. "Telecom sector is the second most fiercely competitive sector in India. Manufacturing is a huge segment which is growing and time is not far when Indian IP will play a role in the production of advanced telecom equipment locally," telecom secretary JS Deepak said.

Telecom sector is expected to be the country’s second fastest expanding sector with an annual growth rate of 15% and it will require an estimated four million skilled workers by 2022. "The ecosystem around telecom manufacturing is strengthening and multinational companies are increasingly establishing R&D centres in India," Deepak said. Indian manufacturers account for a small proportion of the market, which he said will change in future.

Telecom sector, together with the government’s Digital India programme, has a potential to contribute significantly to India’s GDP, Deepak said.

The New York-based research firm McKinsey in a recent study said that the adoption of key technologies across sectors spurred by the Digital India initiative could help boost India’s GDP by $550 billion to $1trillion by 2025.