New Delhi, Oct 12: Commerce and Industry Minister Piyush Goyal on Monday said all European carmakers would prefer to manufacture in India, as producing vehicles there would be uncompetitive due to the region’s regulations.
Goyal said India is going to become a global car manufacturing hub.
“Finally India is going to become the global hub for car manufacturing. Everybody is going to come and manufacture in India and with Europe having such crazy regulations, it is going to be impossible to be competitive. All the European manufacturers will come to India,” he said at The Dilli Dialogue here.
India has provided quota-based tariff concessions to the UK and the European Union (EU) in free trade agreements.
The pact with the UK was operationalised on July 15, while the deal with the EU is likely to be signed by the end of this year.
“I do not know if you are aware. Tatas had so much trouble after they bought Jaguar. Tata Motors itself was going to collapse and then they put in a lot of re-engineering, and shift some models to India…Finally they were able to make money after years,” he added.
Though the minister did not elaborate on any EU regulations, India and certain other countries have raised concerns over EU’s carbon border adjustment mechanism (CBAM).
Regarding India’s exports, Goyal said the ministry is targeting USD one trillion worth of exports of goods and services this fiscal.
Both exports and imports are growing, he said. This gives encouragement to domestic industry and international investors.
During April-August this fiscal, exports jumped 17.85 per cent year-on-year to USD 215.91 billion, and imports climbed 18.21 per cent to USD 363 billion. (PTI)
