Union Minister of Commerce and Industry, Consumer Affairs, Food and Public Distribution and Textiles, Shri Piyush Goyal has said that the government is all set to give a significant leg-up to ease of doing business by bringing a holistic decriminalisation law at upcoming Winter Session of Parliament. He said this while addressing the 117th Annual Session of the PHD Chamber of Commerce in New Delhi today. Decriminalising sections of various laws will end the harassment faced by businesses and reduce compliance burden, he said. 

The Minister spoke of the large number of reforms and transformative steps that have been taken in the last few years and added that the Government pursued a broad based and consensus based development model across sectors and businesses. He urged the Chamber and all stakeholders to give their suggestions and feedback before the winter session of the Parliament so that their inputs can be included in the proposed bill. 

Shri Goyal said that India-Canada FTA negotiations were ongoing and said that the government was striving to get more market access to developed nations for the Indian products and services through FTAs. He added that India has been working with developed  nations which are high-income, high-consumption countries to maximise our exports which will in turn lead to more employment generation in the country. He said that the government is ensuring that FTAs are fair, balanced and equitable for both parties involved. He urged industry to abandon its protectionist mindset and said that our negotiations are with nations that have rule-based systems and transparent processes.

Shri Goyal termed Prime Minister’s GatiShakti National Master Plan as an infrastructure marvel. He asked PHDCCI to organise presentations on the salient features of the National Master Plan so that all stakeholders may understand how technology is being leveraged to create world class infrastructure without time and cost overruns. He expressed confidence that the Production Linked Incentive (PLI) scheme would help Indian manufacturing come of age, would augment capacities and help our manufacturing sector become global in terms of scale and size. 

Shri Goyal dwelled on the challenges that the world faced, from the pandemic to regional conflicts to economic recession and inflation and said that amidst all this turmoil, India has been a shining star.  The Minister said that India continues to be one of the fastest growing economies and successfully continues to rein-in inflation compared to the rest of the world. He observed that while double digit inflation as normal earlier, today the country is able to contain inflation at around 7 percent.

Shri Goyal noted that India has been ranked 40th in the Global Innovation Index (GII) by World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO) and said that this was the result of path-breaking reforms undertaken under the leadership of Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi.  India rose from the 81st place in GII in 2015 to the 40th rank in 2022, he said adding that this achievement was possible only because of the strong partnership between Industry and the government and the significant engagement and support the government received from all business leaders.  The Minister expressed confidence that it would be this partnership will define the future of India.

Shri Goyal elaborated on the National Single Window System (NSWS) into which all central and state ministries and in due course local governments too are being integrated.  He said that one single portal would help get all approvals without any physical interface. Over 32 ministries and several states have been on-boarded on the NSWS and there are 18,000 approvals already being granted on the portal. He asked industry to use NSWS effectively so that they may give feedback to improve the portal.

The Minister also highlighted the recent development of Open Network for Digital Commerce (ONDC) which has begun beta-testing in Bengaluru. He said that the government was trying to democratise e-Commerce so that even small businesses in remote parts of the country can enjoy benefits of digitization and e-Commerce. This will open up new opportunities to many more entrepreneurs and startups, he added. 

 The Minister concluded his remarks by stating that India is today a strong, confident nation which wants to engage with the world from a position of strength. 

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 AD/KP/MS