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Strategy to Boost Share of Services in Exports Being Formulated: Suresh Prabhu
Dec 19, 2017

A strategy to boost the share of services in the export basket of the country is being formulated. This was stated by Mr. Suresh Prabhu, Hon’ble Minister for Commerce and Industry at the Services Conclave: “Serve India and the World” which was organized by the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) in cooperation with the Department of Commerce, Ministry of Commerce and Industry and the Services Export Promotion Council (SEPC) in New Delhi today.

According to the Minister, services exports has the potential to rise faster than goods exports. He stated that Indian Industry needed to identify the markets that they wanted to export to and the Department of Commerce would work on Market Access issues there. He was of the view that we needed to identify new services which had tremendous export potential e.g. healthcare and financial services and within that develop new products which could be exported. He suggested that sectors such as IT should look at developing newer markets such as Latin America as markets such as US and Europe were becoming saturated.

He stated that with manufacturing becoming increasingly automated, it was services that would lead the country in terms of employment generation. He pointed out that even manufacturing had a services component to it.

According to Mr. Uday Kotak, Vice President, CII and Chairman, CII National Council on Services, the services sector contributed 60% of India’s GDP, 30% of India’s exports and just 30% of India’s jobs. He was of the view that measures need to be taken to step up the share of jobs to 40%. He felt that the service sector become the “job creation engine” for the Indian economy.

Highlighting some of the sectors which had the greatest potential for exports, he stated that greater focus needed to be placed on sectors such as Health and Wellness, Tourism, Education, Media and Entertainment and Leisure among others. He pointed out that India’s share of global tourist arrivals was miniscule and measures needed to be taken to reverse this trend.

Mr. Vivek Nair, Chairman, SEPC stated that the service sector was a major source of foreign exchange earnings and it had tremendous potential for growth. While the sector accounted for 60% of India’s GDP, it lagged behind manufacturing in terms of exports – which he felt needed to be corrected. He highlighted the sector’s potential to be a major source of employment generation in the country.

New Delhi

19 December 2017

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