Several multinational firms have evinced interest to shift base to India: Goyal

Several multinational firms in sectors such as electronics, retail, e-commerce, and automotive, among others, have shown interest in shifting their base to India, the Parliament was informed on Friday. In a written reply to the Rajya Sabha, Commerce and Industry Minister Piyush Goyal said that due to sensitivity of information maintained by the companies, the reasons for relocation of operations are not explicitly spelt out.

"Several multinational companies have evinced their interest to shift their base into India across different states in sectors such as electronics, retail, e-commerce, automotive, food processing, textiles etc," he said. He added that the government is working hard to institutionalize more investor friendly reforms to support and facilitate investments into India.

The FDI inflow from the US and other countries in the year 2019-20 stood at USD 74.39 billion, while it was at USD 16.26 billion for AprilJuly 2020-21, Goyal said. Replying to a separate question, the minister said that as per the available data on Government e-Marketplace (GeM), 50,346 contracts were awarded between June 4 and September 15 to various sellers for products conforming to the new guidelines, under which GeM has made it mandatory for sellers to declare 'Country of Origin' for every product offered by them on the portal.

GeM, an online platform for public procurement, was launched in August 2016 with the objective of creating an open and transparent procurement platform for the government. Replying to another question, Goyal said the government is undertaking steps for creating/enhancement of domestic capacity and incentivising domestic manufacturing through Production Linked Incentive Schemes and Phased Manufacturing Plans.

"The import of products under the Free Trade Agreement (FTA) have to meet the Rules of Origin," he added.