Caution against substandard imports replacing local goods

Commerce and industry minister Piyush Goyal cautioned the industry against falling for predatory practices where low cost substandard goods start substituting domestic availability of material. He asked industry to ensure that the downstream industry uses Indian products.

“Korea and Japan are live examples of what aatmanirbhar Bharat should look like. Despite getting cheaper raw materials from other parts of the world, first they use up entire domestic availability of materials. They support each other and ensure that the industry doesn’t die,” Goyal said.

 “Bear in mind what happened with the pharma industry. For small greed, they started importing and the entire API (active pharmaceutical ingredient) industry in India was killed,” Goyal said, adding that finally when they needed APIs, they were let down by their foreign suppliers and the entire pharma industry was put to risk.

Insisting that every element of the industry is important, he said that it is not about closing India’s doors to the world.

“We want to open them wider but not to non transparent opaque suppliers, not to low quality substandard goods,” Goyal said.

The minister said that the effort should be to create the entire ecosystem in India, help them achieve scale so that they can become profitable and remain competitive.

“So far, we have been quite successful in ensuring that the entire value chain works and supports each other as a team,” he said.

The government is trying to make conditions conducive for that such as free trade agreements with developed countries, he said.

“We are facing some challenges this year. It’s possible that every time you don’t meet dramatic targets like that but our confidence shouldn’t get diluted,” Goyal said.