The US-India Strategic and Partnership Forum (USISPF) in its latest report ‘Hi-tech Manufacturing in India’ has stated that high-tech sectors in India like electronics, aviation, medical devices have the potential to attract a huge $21 billion in investment and create 550,000 direct jobs and 1,400,000 indirect jobs over the next five years. It also said Industry looks forward to working with the government to make India a world-class manufacturing hub that can reinforce domestic manufacturing as well as support India's export sector to create the much-needed jobs for Indians.
According to the report, while electronics, aerospace and medical devices have saw the entry of various global multinational companies in India for manufacturing, the country's share in global production within these sectors is less than three percent. It noted that some of the major challenges identified comprise the need for a strong supplier ecosystem, reduction in logistics cost, enhance skilled workforce, and enabling regulatory policies. It also seeks widening of Goods and Services Tax (GST) coverage by bringing in products/sectors presently excluded from it to help reduce cascading impact of taxes and manufacturing cost.
For the electronics sector, the report suggests uniform duty structure across commodities by eliminating anomalies in HSN; appropriate classification of products to mitigate the risk of classification disputes and continued exemption in the form of zero duty for routers and other products as indicated in the Information Technology Agreement. It also recommends to link preferential market access (PMA) to exports and rationalize local value-addition norms to achievable targets.