Mumbai, Feb 20 (TOI): Maharashtra’s economy must grow at the rate of 15.4% annually to become a $1 trillion economy (Rs 65 lakh crore at current exchange rate) by 2025, compared to its current growth rate of 9.4%, chief minister Devendra Fadnavis said.

He also said that he is working to transform the state’s economy into mainly a services driven one from the current mix of manufacturingcum-services driven. And for this, Fadnavis wants to focus more on a digital-enterprise driven administration-cumservices and also impart skills to about 50 lakh youth in the next eight years to be employed in the services sector. If the state’s economy continues to grow at the current annual rate, it would only be in 2029 that the $1 trillion target would be achieved, the CM said. Fadnavis was speaking at the Magnetic Maharashtra global investor summit in the city. Currently, the state’s economy is nearly $400 billion (Rs 26 lakh crore).

To achieve the targeted double-digit growth rate, the services sector has to take the lead with an estimated growth rate of 15.5% annually while the manufacturing sector should grow at 12.3% and the agriculture sector at 5.5% rate, he said. Fadnavis also said that by 2025, the share of services in the state’s economy should be about 67% from 59% now, industry’s should dip to 27% from 30% while the agricultural sector’s share should nearly halve to 6% from 11% at present. He said that the agriculture and industry sectors at present are showing positive growth, but some more acceleration is required in the services sector.

Fadnavis said that though agriculture’s share in the state GDP is only 11%, it employs nearly half of the workforce and there was hardly any more scope for it to absorb more people productively.