Indian Railways Minister Piyush Goyal Meets Officials to Discuss Manufacturing Sector Boost

Government Vows to Boost Domestic Manufacturing

The Indian government is committed to working closely with the industry to expand manufacturing capacities, enhance quality standards, and strengthen competitiveness. This was announced by Commerce and Industry Minister Piyush Goyal on Friday, following an inter-ministerial meeting with industry associations to discuss ways to boost the country's manufacturing.

A comprehensive meeting was held with officials from key ministries and leading industry associations to strategize on boosting domestic manufacturing. The meeting comes at a time when the government is working with the industry to identify about 100 products, including those from the auto, chemicals, plastics, and petrochemicals sectors, that are either not produced or manufactured inadequately in India. This exercise is aimed at reducing the country's import bill, as outflows of foreign exchange are impacting the value of the domestic currency against the US dollar.

The Indian rupee closed at 95.73 against the greenback on Friday. India's imports stood at USD 775 billion in 2025-26, as against USD 721.2 billion in 2023-24. The country mainly imports crude oil, gold, silver, machinery, fertiliser, vegetable oil, chemicals, plastic materials, metals, transport equipment, and electronic goods.

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The West Asia crisis has led to an increase in input costs for certain sectors like plastics, further highlighting the need for domestic production. India's industrial production growth decelerated to a five-month low of 4.1 per cent in March, on account of subdued manufacturing growth and almost flat expansion in the power sector amid the West Asia crisis.

Meanwhile, Goyal co-chaired a meeting with Minister of Ports, Shipping and Waterway Sarbanand Sonwal, on issues related to exporters, importers, and port authorities. The government is committed to ensuring coordinated, time-bound measures to address concerns and create opportunities to make Indian traders more competitive globally. Exporters and importers are facing issues in the West Asia region as the US-Iran war is impacting the movement of ships across the Strait of Hormuz.