IANS | 07 Mar, 2023
Union
Minister of Commerce and Industry Piyush Goyal said that the government,
over the next two or three years, hoped to significantly ramp up focus
on quality by bringing in reasonably strict and compulsary but practical
quality standards on many more products so that Indian manufacturing is
able to withstand irrational competition, increase the scale of
production and become more competitive.
He was addressing the inaugural
session of Massmerize 2023 in New Delhi today.
The
Minister said that as long as we do not recognize the importance of
quality in our country, we will not be able to stop this influx of low
quality products.
'Towards that end we in the government are working to
introduce quality standards in a much bigger way. We have now almost
four times the number of quality control orders implemented in the last
few years than what we had 10 years ago.
Goyal asked manufacturers, FMCG providers and the consumers to work
collectively to revive Indian domestic manufacturing at scale, with high
quality and at competitive prices, so that India once again provides a
large amount of jobs, work opportunities, business opportunities, and
meets the aspirations of 1.4 billion people.
The
Minister opined that the FMCG sector will truly be a driver of economic
growth and that moving forward, India will be an important consumer
market.
He called for the creation and strengthening of a virtuous
circle with massive amounts of investment and focus both on the public
sector and the private sector to create the necessary building blocks or
infrastructure to help the Indian economy grow rapidly.
He called for
renewed investments in infrastructure, in manufacturing, in innovation,
in R&D and in quality.
Goyal observed that developed economies had become developed by
ensuring significant internationalization of their economies, by
engaging with the world in a bigger way, by focusing on scale, so that
they can be more competitive, by building their domestic logistics
ecosystem, where infrastructure investments play an important role, by
focusing their energies on providing what the consumer really wished
for, good high quality products at competitive prices and in the current
context, sustainable goods.
Goyal underscored that sustainability
would drive demand in the days ahead. He noted that the government had
been focusing relentlessly on sustainability accross sectors
The
Minister noted that the consumer industry in India, FMCGs and other
such products have been victims of indiscriminate low quality imports,
because of which India has suffered and Indians have suffered.
He said
that though India had liberalized it's economy and a number of foreign
companies and foreign suppliers did come into the country with some of
them manufacturing in India, most of them had imported goods into India.
Shri Goyal said that it should have been a period where quality Indian
manufacturing at scale had to be strengthened.
'I think we lost out by
allowing a lot of indiscriminate, low quality, low cost goods coming
into the country' he lamented.
Goyal pointed out that India's imports from a certain geography had
widened the trade deficit enormously and contributed to weakening
domestic manufacturing. He observed that this dependence on imports
created a set of business persons who met the consumer demand, but
through pricing, which was often just meant to undercut all domestic
manufacturing, sometimes predatory, thus harming Indian manufacturing.
'The
Government over the last few years, focused its energies on bringing
back the building blocks to get manufacturing into India again and it's
going to be a long haul', he added.
The
Minister said that efforts, coupled with significant investments
earmarked in the budget in the last three or four years will be able to
make Indian manufacturing much much more competitive
The
Minister referred to Open Network for Digital Commerce (ONDC) and said
that it would help our small retail survive the onslaught of large tech
based e-commerce companies.
'Our effort will be to encourage more and
more startups and small companies even at the local level, small retail
the mom and pop stores integrated into the e- commerce ecosystem. And
just like UPI was able to democratize payment systems we do hope that
ONDC will democratize the e-commerce ecosystem and take its benefits to
the people at large', Shri Goyal said.
Goyal said that in India's journey of growth, the retail sector and the
FMCG sector, will have a huge role to play.
He stressed that going
forward consumption will increase significantly and added that
consumption will be driven by demand for good quality products made in a
sustainable way, delivered smartly.
He expressed confidence that Indian
industry will absorb the standards of quality that the consumer really
deserves and desires.
He
stressed on the importance of buying products which ultimately provided
jobs, which will not strengthen countries which are inimical to India's
interests, but will strengthen India's economy, will have more people
become consumers and will help boost the virtuous cycle that of
investments in India, money spent in India, leading to jobs in India,
incomes for the people of India, who then become consumers.
'It is this
virtuous cycle is what will make India a developed country, a prosperous
country, a country where 1.4 billion people lead prosperous lives' he
added.
He
also asked consumers to foster respect for domestic products and Indian
producers. He asked organizations like FICCI to take this message of
respect for Indian products, respect for Indian ecosystem, respect for
the opportunities that consumers can provide for young Indian talent to
provide goods and services in India to all parts of the country.