(Agence France-Presse photo)
Prime Minister Narendra Modi is expected to make a sales pitch to the world's top 3,000 companies when he launches his "Make in India" campaign on Thursday, picking up from the slogan he introduced in his August 15 Independence Day speech. (
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The campaign seeks to present India as a global manufacturing hub; 25 of its priority sectors include "Make in India-Pharma", "Make in India-Auto Component" and "Make in India-Bio-tech".
Sources say all stakeholders including leading businessmen and CEOs have been invited for the event in Delhi's Vigyan Bhawan.
At the same time, programmes will be held in state capitals and also Indian missions abroad, where officials are expected to engage with investors and consultants just as PM Modi addresses CEOs back home. (
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Sources say the government has broadly chosen top 10 companies across 10 sectors in 30 countries.
To attract investors to India, the Modi government plans to speed up decision-making by bringing in a new mechanism for approving proposals from foreign companies. (
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As part of that plan, the "Invest India" unit in the Commerce Ministry's Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion has been revamped; an eight-member experts' body will examine proposals from companies, which will be processed by a nodal officer from each ministry involved.
Currently, a company planning to start a business in India finds itself wading through a dozen procedures, which take at least a month to complete. Contracts take far more time to process, which has led to India placing a poor 134 among 189 economies in the World Bank's "Doing Business 2014" report. (
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Mr Modi's party, the BJP, won the biggest mandate in 30 years in May's national election, but is accused by critics of not delivering on major reforms to overhaul an economy suffering through the worst slowdown in two decades.
In his first Independence Day speech at Delhi's Red Fort, PM Modi invited the global business community to set up manufacturing facilities in India, saying, "Come, make in India. Sell anywhere, but manufacture here."