Poorest of consumers also deserve best quality products: Piyush Goyal
Sep 20, 2022
New Delhi [India], September 21 : Union Commerce and Industry Minister Piyush Goyal said on Tuesday that even the poorest citizen of the country deserve the best quality products and the culture of no compromise with quality has to be adopted in the country.
Goyal, who is also Minister of Consumer Affairs, Food and Public Distribution and Textiles, urged the industry to focus on five key areas in the manufacturing sector - standards or quality, durability, design, price and sustainability and align them to the international standards.
He was addressing the Special Plenary Session at FICCI LEADS 2022 programme here.
"We must adopt new technologies like IoT, AI and Machine Learning. We must look at upskilling and retraining our workforce to be able to meet the needs of Industry 4.0," he said.
Speaking on the importance of world trade, Goyal said "we must acknowledge that we need to engage with the world to develop".
"We need to globalize trade and get the best from the world while simultaneously giving the best to the World. We must focus on green energy, reducing emissions, generating consciousness about cleanliness and other SDG Goals contributing towards a better future for our children and Utilise PLIs to strengthen MSME ecosystem."
Referring to the theme of the event, Goyal observed that excellence in manufacturing is not new to India.
He said that though there is no sector in which India does not have high-quality manufacturing, "we as a society still live in two worlds - one which is highly quality conscious and another which is still not sensitized to the value of high quality".
"We need to change this mindset of two quality standards for domestic and international markets and must not compromise with quality," he said.
Goyal said that FICCI can play an important role in taking the message of quality to the MSME sector through its partnership with other associations across the country.
Stressing the need to expand India's engagement with international markets, he noted that the world wants to engage with India.
Citing the example of Saudi Arabia, he said it is looking for India's partnership in nearly 30 sectors including pharma, mining, infrastructure, fintech, EdTech, HealthTech and education. Medical devices, e-gaming and e-commerce are other areas in which they want Indian expertise. He urged the Industry to grab these opportunities.
"If we collectively focus our energies on the 5 'pran' that Prime Minister Narendra Modi gave us, we can be a developed nation in the next 25 years and bring prosperity to every single home through the length and breadth of the country," he said.
