After the series of meetings that the Finance Minister had conducted with the different sections of the economy, it is now the turn of the IT Minister to meet with the representatives of the electronics industry. The idea behind this meeting is to gather their views on what can be done to give a boost to the electronics sector in the country and to hear the industry speak of what they feel are the steps needed to achieve the objective of turning the country into an electronics export hub.
The meeting, a round-table to be held on Monday, August 19, will have virtually the entire industry represented to present their views and share the issues they face. The Indian representatives of Apple, Samsung, Sony, HPE, Intel, GE and Ericsson as well as some of the contract manufacturers like Foxconn and Wistron have all been invited to meet Ravi Shankar Prasad, the IT Minister, his deputies and the bureaucrats. The homegrown players like Micromax and Lava would be at the table too. Also lending support to the industry players will be the different trade associations connected to the electronics industry. The country’s top think tank, Niti Aayog, will be there too.
The Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) is the nodal ministry spearheading this push to make India an electronics export hub. A policy document, the National Policy on Electronics 2019 (NPE 2019) is already in the public domain.
There is an estimate that the demand for electronic products in India will reach $400 billion by the year 2025. The invitation sent out to these companies and other entities has alluded to this and said there is a huge opportunity for making investments in the industry to manufacture the products for domestic consumption as well as for exports.
The invite says that Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad is keen to understand the views of the industry and to "walk the path together to ensure a conducive policy environment for the electronics industry to flourish in India".
The government has some proposals up its sleeve to incentivise the industry for it to reach those milestones.