“Global Economic Summit is the most important programme for the times that we are living in. The world has changed and now it is all Global Value Chains, which make the world function. Nobody makes a product in one particular geography alone. Adding value to the supply chain is what is going to be the new mantra of business,” said Suresh Prabhu, Minister of Commerce and Industry, Government of India in his video message at the 7th Global Economic Summit on ‘Global Value Chains: Accelerating MSME Growth, Development and Sustainability’ held at World Trade Centre Mumbai yesterday. The Summit is jointly organised by World Trade Centre Mumbai and All India Association of Industries (AIAI).
Prabhu further said, “The choice of the world is whether I should make something in my country.. or I should get it from outside… whether I should make everything in my country… or do something in my country where I am good at… and get others to add to my already created product by doing a value addition. This is what is going to be the global value chain of the world… it has got tremendous opportunities to create jobs. We should be part of the global economy
Prabhu complimented Kamal Morarka, Chairman, World Trade Centre Mumbai, Vijay Kalantri, President All India Association of Industries and Rupa Naik, Senior Director, World Trade Centre Mumbai. He said the various research findings of World Trade Centre Mumbai and AIAI are praiseworthy.
The inaugural Session of the Summit was attended by around 350 delegates from more than 30 countries, Ambassadors, Consul Generals and other top officials of government, representatives from multilateral agencies, MSMEs, corporate houses, trade promotion organizations and academic institutions.
In her Special Remarks, Dr. Sonia Sethi, I.A.S, Additional Director General of Foreign Trade, Directorate General of Foreign Trade, Mumbai Zonal Office highlighted some of the policy measures taken by the Ministry of Commerce and Industry to promote Global Value Chains in India.”
Dr. Sethi suggested the World Trade Centre Mumbai to come out with a white paper at the end of the Summit suggesting actionable areas for government to bring out conducive polices for integrating Indian MSMEs in the Global Value Chains.
Delivering the welcome address for the inaugural session, Kamal Morarka, Chairman, World Trade Centre Mumbai said, “Today, almost all the think tanks in the Western Countries believe that India is a safe place to do business. Stability and predictability are the key features of the Indian economy since it started the process of integrating with the world economy in 1991. India takes pride in it system of transparent administration, robust democracy, freedom of press, functioning legal system.”
Vijay Kalantri, President, All India Association of Industries (AIAI), Vice Chairman, World Trade Centre Mumbai and Director, WTCA Board, N.Y. proposed vote of thanks for the inaugural session. Kalantri pointed out that India has received a record level of foreign direct investment of USD 60 billion in 2017 and Maharashtra has a share of 50%. Currently, Indian economy is growing at 6.0-7.0% today and if this growth has to increase to 8.0-10.0%, MSMEs have a large role to play in this. Therefore, Government of India must support MSMEs in areas of finance, marketing, logistics, infrastructure and so on.”
During the inaugural session, distinguished guests released the ‘Global Economic Summit 2018 Handbook’, which is a collection of articles, interviews, case studies and success stories Global Value Chains across the world.
The session also featured felicitation of reputed companies such as Gujarat Co-operative Milk Marketing Federation Ltd, Datamatics Global Services Ltd and Crystal Automation Pvt Ltd. for their extraordinary contribution to value chain in their respective sectors.