Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Monday (April 22, 2025) stated India plans to improve the share of the manufacturing sector from 12% to 23% over the subsequent twenty years, aiming to create jobs and drive financial progress.
India is focussing on 14 recognized sunrise sectors like semiconductors, renewable power parts, medical gadgets, batteries and labour intensive industries, together with leather-based and textile, to improve the share of manufacturing in GDP, she stated whereas talking at Hoover Institution at Stanford University California.
For India, she stated, “scaling up manufacturing is essential to absorb a youthful workforce, reduce import dependencies and build competitive global supply chains”.
Observing that the world is present process an entire reset with regard to manufacturing in the view of industrial revolution 4.0, she stated, India, too, is witnessing modifications.
“In India’s GDP, the service sector’s contribution is about 64% and if that is one side, at the lower end, the gig economy’s growth is rapid. In fact, if 7.1 million people are in the gig economy today, as of 2021-22 data, we expect that to go to 230 million by 2030. That’s not manufacturing,” she stated.
“So the service sector disproportionately contributes both to the GDP and to employment… but that’s not to say manufacturing should be left aside. We have been hoping to increase the contribution of manufacturing from 12% to about 22-23%,” she stated, replying to a query as to what share of jobs the manufacturing sector will account for in the subsequent decade, or by 2047.
The authorities has recognized 14 sunrise sectors – semiconductors, renewable power parts, medical gadgets, hydrogen mission, batteries and so forth in order to strengthen manufacturing and launched the production-linked incentive (PLI) scheme to promote them.
PLI is being supplied to sectors that even have larger employment potential like digital items and equally labour intensive sectors like textile and leather-based.
Highlighting the significance of manufacturing sector, she stated, it binds societies and lends cohesion to communities by offering employment alternatives and monetary power to communities.
For long-term progress, she stated, manufacturing emerges as a key engine for transformation.
“Manufacturing has historically been a cornerstone of the economic transformation of nations from 19th century Britain to 21st century East Asia. It creates a forward and backward linkages, catalyses skilling and pushes demand for infrastructure and governance reforms,” she stated.
On the current tariff-related actions by the Trump administration in the U.S. and its influence on India, Ms. Sitharaman stated when there may be stability in authorities, consistency in coverage, a predictability in tax regime, investments and progress may be deliberate and executed to a big extent.
Published – April 22, 2025 10:56 pm IST
