SME Times News Bureau | 15 Jun, 2019
The US and China offers an opportunity to India,
said Union Minister of State for Commerce and Industry Hardeep Singh Puri ongoing
trade war between on Friday.
“The ongoing trade wars present an excellent
opportunity for India to gain from”, said Puri.
He further elucidated that this could be done if industry could be more effective ‘eyes &
ears’ of trade before the government to highlight issues, concerns and
expectations. Shri Puri was speaking at Confederation of Indian Industry’s
National Conference held in New Delhi here today.
Puri highlighted specific products such as Fresh
grapes, Tobacco, Steel Boiler Tubes, Fresh dried oranges, Durum wheat etc where
there exists tremendous potential for India to take advantage due to the high
tariffs imposed by both US and China on each other.
“Apex bodies need to be active in picking up
opportunities in trade along with the government”, he commented. “China will be
importing US$24 trillion of goods and services in the next 5 years. We need to
seize the opportunity presented by this effectively”, Puri added.
“The world has come a long way since the current
trading system was evolved. The multilateral trading system anchored in WTO is
under strain. However, India must participate in the multilateral discussions
to shape the new trade rules because if we choose to stay away, we lose the opportunity
to influence”, Puri elucidated.
“India has a
lot to gain from the preservation and growth of multilateralism anchored in a
system of law and rules & regulations”, he added.
“We will meet the target of Housing for All by 2020
as opposed to 2022 with 83 lakh houses alone getting sanctioned before the code
of conduct kicked in earlier this year”, Puri stated.
Smart cities project is the fastest implementable
project in the world and to develop it further, by the end of December 2019, 50
integrated Command & Control Centres in Smart Cities will be operational,
he added.
On the civil aviation sector, the Minister noted
that “though we have some turbulence in the sky, he was confident that the
government will provide an enabling environment where the issues will be
resolved”.
The civil aviation sector has tremendous potential
and India would want to become world leaders in the sector. The domestic
carriers should be provided a level playing field to flourish, he commented.
In the real estate sector, RERA has been a game-changer
and it carries the potential of turning around the fortunes of the beleaguered
sector, if implemented in true letter and spirit, noted the Minister.