Minister Goyal: 'India is Becoming Global Hub for Innovation With Third-Largest Start-Up Ecosystem'

India's commerce minister said that Indian start-ups have the potential to create a global impact. Despite the COVID-19 pandemic, he adds, that India saw a growth of 8.4% in GDP in the second quarter, high exports, high FDI, and large amounts of investments by Indian companies in other nations.

Indian Minister of Commerce and Industry Piyush Goyal has said that under Prime Minister Narendra Modi's initiative "New India 2022", the country is becoming a global hub for innovation with the third-largest start-up ecosystem and possessing 79 unicorns - a privately held start-up company valued at over $1 billion.

While addressing the Partnership Summit by the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) virtually from New Delhi on Tuesday, federal minister Piyush Goyal called upon fellow ministers of neighbouring countries to seize upon investment opportunities and work together to forge enhanced trade alliances with nations like the UAE, EU, UK, Israel, Australia, Canada, Russia, and Oman.

Goyal outlined six areas where India is focusing on building a sustainable, inclusive, and resilient ecosystem for future partnerships. These areas include trade agreements, investments, supply chain, ease of doing business, innovation, and sustainability.

"I would urge businesses from across countries to look at India as an investment destination and invite Indian businesses to come and invest in your country and help create jobs", Goyal said.

Govt. is promoting investments in India & from India, across the world.

🇮🇳 is inviting businesses to seize large opportunities, as it is the place to be.

There is huge potential in sectors like healthcare, infrastructure, defence, energy, civil aviation, insurance & technology. pic.twitter.com/tPAoiRrRvj

— Piyush Goyal (@PiyushGoyal) December 14, 2021

Goyal said that India is looking for Free Trade Agreements (FTAs) with other countries to forge stronger economic ties and is also reviving existing FTAs with Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), Japan, and Korea.

He listed potential sectors for investments, including healthcare, infrastructure, defence, energy, civil aviation, insurance, and technology and added that various schemes to facilitate trade and investment, including Production Linked Incentives (PLI), liberalised Foreign Direct Investment (FDI), and many others, are being executed.

The federal minister shared that with the National Single Window System and other initiatives, the ease of doing business in India has increased significantly.

While Goyal called for enhancing economic ties with other countries, he stressed that the path to economic growth must be intertwined with a commitment to sustainability.

With India's pledge to achieve net-zero emissions by 2070, Goyal said that the country will reach its non-fossil energy capacity of 500 GW (gigawatts) by 2030 and meet 50% of its energy requirements from renewable energy.