New industrial policy to resolve manufacturing sector challenges: Official

The New Industrial Policy, to be announced soon, will address challenges faced by the manufacturing sector encompassing adoption of standards and quality control to boost India's industrial base, a senior official said Thursday.

The manufacturing sector has lagged and the time is opportune to give primacy to this sector, Anand Singh Bhal, Principal Economic Adviser in the Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion (DIPP), said while addressing the India-Korea Technology and Education Exchange Forum.

"India is not a very strong manufacturing nation, and (the segment) only contributes 16 per cent to our GDP which is not very good," he said.

Under the Make in India initiative, the government aims to increase the share of the manufacturing sector to the gross domestic product (GDP) to 25 per cent by 2022.

He also said that India had a lot to learn from South Korea in terms of innovation in the manufacturing sector and creating a robust industrial base. The learnings and their implementation will also create large avenues for employment, the burden of which is currently borne by the services sector.