India must establish a strong manufacturing sector which generates employment if it is to achieve a growth rate of 10 per cent, according to a top government official.
According to PTI, speaking at an FICCI function on IPR on Saturday, Secretary in the Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion Amitabh Kant said, "Manufacturing cannot be driven unless and until India becomes innovation led economy and therefore innovation has to be the backbone of India's growth."
India, the world’s second most populous nation, is expected to grow at 4.9 per cent in 2013-14. This will be the lowest growth figure for 10 years.
In an effort to increase growth, the government is aiming to boost the manufacturing sector. To this end, it has proposed setting up mega industrial zones in different parts of the country.
In addition, it wants to increase the contribution of manufacturing to the national GDP from the current proportion of 16 per cent to 25-26 per cent by 2025. And it hopes to create 100 million jobs in the next decade.
The Asia News Network quotes Chaitanya Prasad, Controller General of Patents, Designs and Trademark, as saying, “An ecosystem in the form of institutions, incentives, policies and the right tools can shoot up activities in the country at all levels.”
He emphasized the need for innovation and said: “The immediate need for a developing country like ours is to make maximum efforts to find out ways to translate innovations into affordable knowledge-products in order to serve the public.”