Piyush Goyal: India Ready to “Pay Extra” For Stronger, Resilient Supply Chains

Commerce and Industry Minister Piyush Goyal declared on Wednesday that India is prepared to invest additional funds to fortify supply chain resilience across sectors, emphasising self-reliance amid global disruptions like geopolitical conflicts and pandemics. Speaking at the UNCTAD Ministerial Roundtable on 'Towards Resilient, Sustainable, and Inclusive Supply Chains and Trade Logistics', Goyal outlined India's strategic response to vulnerabilities exposed by events such as the Israel-Hamas war disrupting Red Sea shipping routes.

"We are addressing each and every supply chain sectorally to see where our vulnerabilities are and where we need to expand capacity, and we are willing to pay that extra buck to be able to have resilience in our supply chains," he stated. Central to this effort is the 'Atmanirbhar Bharat' (Self-Reliant India) initiative, launched in 2020 to reduce import dependencies and boost domestic manufacturing. The government has introduced production-linked incentive (PLI) schemes across 14 sectors, including electronics and pharmaceuticals, attracting over $12 billion in investments and creating millions of jobs.

Goyal highlighted massive infrastructure upgrades under a trillion-dollar national master plan, with the government allocating approximately $130 billion annually. Over the past decade, India has doubled its port capacity to 2.48 billion tonnes, expanded airports from 74 to 158—with plans to reach 225 in the next 7-8 years—and developed extensive rail, road, and inland waterway networks. These enhancements aim to support local industries and self-reliant systems, while targeting production concentrations in geopolitically risky regions. "Wherever we found a concentration of production or supply from any geography, that has been the area where we've looked at self-reliance," Goyal noted, acknowledging uncontrollable factors like Red Sea tensions but prioritising trusted partnerships over mere cost savings.

Also Read: Global Investors Commit Rs 50,000 Crore to India Says Piyush Goyal

In global trade, India is expanding free trade agreements (FTAs) with reliable partners, having implemented pacts with Australia, the EFTA bloc (Switzerland, Norway, Iceland, and Liechtenstein), the UAE, and Mauritius. Negotiations are underway with the US, the European Union, Chile, Peru, New Zealand, and Oman. Goyal stressed collaboration among developing nations, offering to share India's Unified Payments Interface (UPI) system worldwide to slash transaction costs by up to 90% compared to traditional methods like SWIFT. This approach, he argued, fosters inclusive growth, job creation, and sustainable logistics in a fragmented global economy.

Also Read: Tourism is India’s Secret Weapon for Massive Job Creation Says Piyush Goyal