PRESS RELEASE
Modi in Germany: Make India a High-Tech Manufacturing Hub
April 13, 2015 (EIRNS)—In an op-ed in German daily Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung today, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi wrote, "We have re-energized the Indian growth engine. The credibility of our economy has been restored. India is once again poised for rapid growth and development. It is the only emerging economy where growth rate is rising. The prospects are even better." Building the high-tech industrial sector of India, making India a manufacturing hub that can provide high-skill products to the world and not just to its domestic market, is a central objective of the "Make in India" campaign with which Modi is wooing investors from abroad. State funding of highways, railroads, particularly also the development of the Delhi-Mumbai industrial corridor, has been increased considerably, Modi said, voicing confidence that within one generation, India can be transformed the way he thinks it should.
"For us, development is not a mere political agenda, it is an article of faith," Modi writes, continuing, "If we take all Indians together into better socio-economic future, I believe that world we share will be better place for all." Stating that India believes in "Rahein Saath Badhe Saath" ("stay together, grow together"). This, Modi wrote, will eradicate poverty, which Mahatma Gandhi once said was the "worst form of violence at all." Modi visualizes India as a key engine of global growth. "My government has pledged a stable and transparent tax regime, reducing corporate taxes and implementing a single Goods and Services Tax in 2016," he wrote.
Pitching his "Make in India" campaign, the Prime Minister, who arrived in Germany yesterday, writes, "Generating jobs for India’s youthful population is the key to harnessing India’s demographic advantage." And Germany is India’s preferred partner in the effort to improve the skills of the young generation of Indians, Modi stressed. Assistance in India’s programs for the construction of new modern urban centers ("smart cities"), for water management ("clean India"), and in logistics and transport, which are crucial for the development of the industrial corridors, is very much what India wants from Germany, Modi wrote.
