Daijiworld Media Network - Mangaluru (JS)

Mangaluru, May 17: Kanara Chamber of Commerce and Industry (KCCI) on Saturday May 16 held an interactive session with Jagat Shah, representative of the government of Manitoba, Canada for a trade and investment in India, at the meeting hall of KCCI here.

In his presentation Jagat Shah said, "Every year 14 million youngsters enter the job market in India, but we are able to produce only 4.4 million jobs. From past 25 years manufacturing sector is stuck at 15 percent, whereas service industry has grown. This is mainly because of legal constraints for the manufacturing industry.

"Only the manufacturing industry can create a huge number of jobs. If SMEs grow in India then more jobs can be created. People say Gujarat has done well, it is mainly because of the manufacturing industry. As much as 25% of Gujarat's GDP comes from manufacturing. There are many constraints hindering the manufacturing industry, for instance difficulty in land acquisition, labour laws, implementation of uniform tax and many more," he said.

"Make in India is nothing but the need to get technology to India from advanced countries and manufacture here. We have to take the joint venture route. We need to invest on research and development," he added.

"We have to learn from the success stories of online shopping sites operating in the United States. An online automotive spare parts seller buys goods from dealers in India, its website is designed in Bengaluru, and it sells the parts in America. There is another website which sells diamonds in the United States made by a Surat-based designer. The website's turn over is Rs 1,495 crore, but it only runs the website while the products are completely from India. The Gujarat diamond industry is worth Rs 90,000 crore and the biggest seller among them is a person with a turnover of Rs 3,000 crore, who manufactures diamond jewelery. The person who is only selling the jewelery in the US makes half this turnover. Hence, we need to export and market the goods that we produce," he said.

When a member in the audience asked Shah if Chinese technology could be used in India in the construction field, Shah replied, "Certainly, Chinese technology can be adopted in construction business in India. As Indian and Chinese construction industry have close similarities, we can have a joint venture - that is, technology coluld be adopted from China, with India as the market."

Treasurer M Ganesh Bhat, vice-president Rammohan Pai Maroor, honorary secretary Ananth G Pai, joint director G S Hegde and others were present.