EAM Jaishankar: Modi govt focusing on boosting manufacturing

Boosting India's domestic manufacturing and the overall economy will provide much more resources in its foreign policy toolkit to expand the country's influence globally and compete with China on the economic front, External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar said.

India under the leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi has been focusing on enhancing domestic manufacturing in the last 10 years as there was a neglect of the sector before 2014 and it created many problems for the country, Jaishankar told PTI in an exclusive interview.

He also suggested that lack of focus in the past to the manufacturing sector is linked to the upward trajectory in India-China trade notwithstanding New Delhi's position that normalisation of ties with Beijing is dependent on the resolution of the eastern Ladakh border row.

Jaishankar suggested that such a scenario has arisen as adequate attention to the manufacturing sector was not given before 2014.

The Indian and Chinese militaries have been locked in a standoff since May 2020 and a full resolution of the border row has not yet been achieved though the two sides have disengaged from a number of friction points.

India has been consistently maintaining that peace and tranquillity along the LAC were key for normalisation of overall ties.

However, trade between the two countries is steadily expanding.

Since the beginning of the last decade, bilateral trade between India and China recorded significant growth.

From 2015 to 2022, India-China bilateral trade grew by 90.14 per cent, an average yearly growth of 12.87 per cent. 

In 2022, the overall trade with China increased by 8.47 per cent year on year to reach USD 136.26 billion, crossing the USD 100 billion mark for a second time in a row, according to official data.