India’s focus should be on having resilient supply chains, said Union Commerce and Industry Minister, Piyush Goyal, on Wednesday.
Underscoring the need for adopting ‘swadeshi’ goods, the minister said moving away from ‘certain geographies’ would require control over key technologies and designing or developing in India, which is key for the country’s long-term growth and sovereignty.
Goyal was seemingly hinting at India veering away from the US, especially after the latter imposed 50 per cent sanctions on India, including punitive tariffs for buying Russian crude oil.
He added that reducing dependence on foreign technologies, foreign weapons, foreign energy sources and foreign critical technologies is important for the country’s growth.
“How important it is to decouple in certain sectors and certain very important subjects, from overdependence on certain geographies.
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And therefore India today has resolved to move away from just being the back office of the world, or software provider of the world to become global engine of innovation,” he said at TiEcon event.
“This decade, in fact, has given us several wake up calls, starting from Covid, how important is to have resilient supply chains, to have your own technologies, control over technologies, control over essential supplies in critical areas,” Goyal added.
Indian tech startups are getting huge valuations worldwide, said the minister, which is why the second edition of funds may be dedicated entirely for deep tech investment, particularly early stage investments.
“... so that our friends from deep tech ecosystem do not end up selling large part of their equity at very early stage to funds or VCs, to foreign funds and are able to maintain large part of their ownership for future rounds and for maturing their technology going forward,” he added.
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