SEZs to get fresh fillip under Narendra Modi government, says Nirmala Sitharaman

VISAKHAPATNAM: Special Economic Zones have not performed to their full potential in the past ten years and so the NDA government is planning to tweak policies to make them more productive and viable, said Union Minister of State for Commerce and Industry Nirmala Sitharaman today.

She said Indian firms active in manufacturing business must get more innovative and develop their market research capabilities to compete with their Chinese counterparts.

Sitharaman was here to lay foundation stone for the Information Technology Towers at Vizag Special Economic Zone in Duvvada. The project is part of the Centre's initiative to promote IT industry in Tier II cities.

The towers will have up a built up area of 1.09 lakh sq ft along with 30,000 sq ft of disaster data recovery area which can be used by IT firms, Indian or foreign, for saving their data as backup.

Speaking to the reporters, she said the Narendra Modi Government is planning to rework policies to make the SEZs more productive economically since these trade enclaves have not performed to their full potential in the past ten years.

As of now, there are 564 approved SEZs in the country, of which 388 have been notified and 192 are operational, she said.

Investment in these SEZs stood at more than Rs 3 lakh crore and they provide employment to 12,70,000 people. Their export volume is to the tune of nearly Rs 5 lakh crore, the Minister said.