The Union Minister for Commerce and Industry, Textiles and Consumer Affairs, Food and Public Distribution Piyush Goyal addressed the Asia Economic Dialogue in Pune today. The Minister shared his conviction that India would be the third largest economy in four years or so, at best five years.

“My own conviction about the way India is growing is that we will drive our economy probably closer to 35 - 40 trillion-dollar economy by 2047. The desire of every Indian is to be second to none.”

The Minister exhorted the industry to be proud of their achievements, of our strong macroeconomic fundamentals, about the reforms done in the past few years. “We believe India not only is the fastest growing large economy, we will continue to be so for many decades to come.”

The Minister observed that Asia has its own particular dynamics, where we have economies which are both democracies and those which are non-transparent and non-rule-based.

“In the last decade or so, India has been wanting to internationalize and engage with technology and modern way of working. Today, India is clearly recognized as the country of the decade, if not the country of the 21st century. We have already moved from the tenth largest to the fifth largest economy. We today have a young demographic dividend, which is being recognized as our biggest asset.”

The Minister said that the Russia-Ukraine conflict has had a severe effect on the developed world more than the developing countries. For food security and energy security and consequential impact on inflation, interest rates and growth, it has had a devastating effect on both developed and developing countries, he added.

The Minister recalled that in 2019, when India was engaged in discussions on joining RCEP group of nations, having studied what was being offered to India as part of the RCEP Agreement, we realized we were in some way an outlier.

“To my mind, the then-government’s decision to offer to become a part of RCEP was ill-conceived, since we were entering into an FTA with a non-transparent economy with no rule of law or court of appeal or democracy. The agreement could have been the death-knell of all manufacturing in India.”

The Commerce Minister said that over the years, we have hurt India’s interests by making our people getting used to low-cost substandard goods from China.

“The trade deficit with China which was under 2 billion dollars around 15 – 16 years ago, increased to around 48 billion dollars by 2014. We allowed products to come from China while they stopped our products from India to go to China through legitimate or illegitimate reasons. Hence, it was music to my ear when Prime Minister Narendra Modi decided to not join RCEP on 4th November, 2019, which was celebrated across the country by every section of industry and business, every farmer and every person associated with dairy sector.”

The Minister spoke of the need to sensitize our people to take more pride in Indian products. “India believes in the rule of law, their right to liberty, freedom of expression. Very different economic philosophies coexist in Asia. It will take some time for us to create adequate systems and manufacturing systems, and also sensitize our people and businesses to wean ourselves away from the opium of low-cost low-quality goods coming in from China.”

The Minister said that India is now a partner the world can trust.

“By converting the COVID-19 crisis into an opportunity, we were able to open the world’s eyes towards India. Our ability to innovate and come out with vaccines and distribute and vaccinate the population at low cost has been a world record. During COVID-19, we did not let down a single international commitment. We are a trading partner the world can trust. We have had the highest ever exports in 2021-22.”