‘Big economic zones, labour reforms will propel growth’

Mumbai, March 17 (IANS) Participants at a panel discussion here on Friday generally agreed that setting up of big economic zones, ease of doing business and labour reforms are the major factors that would enable the manufacturing sector to grow and create more jobs.

India should have at least two big special economic zones on the coastal region from where exports would be easy so as to create jobs, said Anand Mahindra, Chairman and Managing Director of Mahindra Group.

Participating in a panel discussion on 'The New Fault Lines - Global Economy, Local Flux' at the India Today conclave here, Mahindra said manufacturing is about job-creation.

According to him, India should develop at least two big special economic zones (SEZ) similar to Zhengzhou Economic Zone in China on the coast where manufacturing and exports could happen.

Responding to that, Amitabh Kant, CEO, Niti Aayog, said the government has identified two states -- Andhra Pradesh and Gujarat -- for locating such SEZs.

Kant said no country has grown without exports forming a major portion of its economy.

He also said the BJP government at the Centre has scraped around 1,200 laws and is focussed on ease of doing business in the country.

The central government is taking risks with various programmes like Start Up India, demonetisation and others. Only then will there be progress forward, Kant remarked.

Kant said that if there are around 10 states that log an economic growth of 10 per cent per annum then other states will also be compelled to look at growth.

According to Mahindra, investors look at infrastructure, ease of doing business, availability of manpower and the commitment of the political leadership while making an investment decision.

On the issue of labour law reforms, Mahindra said Gujarat has passed a law whereby the labour laws would not apply to new economic zones.

Kant said large scale manufacturing is not possible without labour reforms and states should drive the labour law reforms.

He added that by 2018, two dedicated freight corridors would come into play in the country which would drastically cut down the goods transport time from 14 days to around 14 hours.