West Bengal Finance Minister Calls for Major Corporate Investments for State's Industrial Revival

Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman has invited international investors to establish manufacturing bases, as well as technology and innovation centers in India, urging them to utilize existing talent and opportunities to create products for the global market.

Speaking at a high-level Business Roundtable with leading investors and business leaders in Chicago on Friday, Sitharaman highlighted India's broad growth, the pace of reforms, and expanding prospects for long-term investment.

Sitharaman emphasized that India's appeal for investment is not based on any single sector, but on a combination of scale, growth, availability of talent, infrastructure, technology, and sustained reforms implemented over the last decade.

At the roundtable, organized by the Consulate General of India in Chicago in collaboration with the US-India Strategic Partnership Forum, she stated: 'The political environment is increasingly geared towards ensuring opportunities for businesses to invest, manufacture, innovate, and expand.'

The Finance Minister called upon global partners to jointly develop, co-manufacture, and create products for world markets. She strongly recommended viewing India not merely as a sales market, but as a platform for building global businesses—be it a manufacturing base, a technology and innovation center, a consumer market, or a location for long-term infrastructure investments, leveraging India's engineering talent, manufacturing scale, and technological ecosystem.

The main theme of the meeting was 'Manufacturing in India—for India and for the World,' covering areas such as manufacturing, artificial intelligence, and digital technologies, financial services, infrastructure, food processing, defense, and advanced technologies.

Sitharaman noted that as global companies review supply chains and capital allocation, India offers not only market scale but also growing depth as a long-term investment and operational platform.

The Minister reported that India's Digital Public Infrastructure, including Aadhaar, UPI, DigiLocker, ONDC, and India Stack, has created platforms covering the entire population. She added that the next phase involves creating higher-value enterprises in AI, engineering, analytics, product development, semiconductors, and electronics, as India's Global Centers of Excellence become increasingly global innovation hubs.

Furthermore, Sitharaman mentioned that GIFT City is developing as an international financial center connecting global capital with Indian opportunities. She pointed out that as of June 2026, 1250 organizations offering opportunities in banking, fund management, reinsurance, aircraft and vessel leasing, sustainable finance, and other cross-border services are registered there, and invited global institutions to explore GIFT City as a gateway to India's financial ecosystem.

According to her, amid the reconfiguration of global supply chains, India possesses a compelling combination of a large domestic market and competitive manufacturing capabilities on the world stage. The focus is shifting from simple assembly to deeper component manufacturing, engineering, and advanced technologies, supported by targeted policy measures, including production-linked incentives.

Sitharaman also discussed that the development of India's infrastructure—from dedicated freight corridors and railway modernization to electrification and high-speed corridors—opens up opportunities in engineering, technology, materials, specialized equipment, and long-term institutional capital. She mentioned that the National Infrastructure Investment Fund provides a commercially oriented platform for global investors to participate in this opportunity.

In agriculture, due to rising incomes and changing consumption patterns, India is creating opportunities in food processing, automation, packaging, logistics, and cold chain, with the potential to create enterprises serving both Indian and global markets. The Finance Minister stressed that through initiatives like Atmanirbhar Bharat and iDEX, India is building internal capabilities in drones, autonomous systems, and other advanced technologies.

As part of her six-day visit to the US, Sitharaman plans to attend the G-20 Finance Ministers meeting in Asheville, North Carolina, as well as in New York.

India is showing progress in the production of several previously imported goods, including smartphones, solar modules, electric vehicles, and telecommunication equipment. However, gaps remain in critical components and upstream manufacturing chains, which limits domestic value addition.

It is important to understand that simply assembling a product in India does not guarantee the localization of the entire value chain; the key factor is the share of components, materials, and technologies produced domestically. This aspect is becoming central to India's efforts to develop its manufacturing industry.

According to a recent report by NITI Aayog, prepared jointly with Crisil, the country's ambitions must go beyond merely increasing production volumes and focus on deepening value addition, strengthening domestic capabilities, and participating more actively in global supply chains.

The automotive industry has the most developed ecosystem

India's automotive sector possesses one of the most developed manufacturing networks in the country, boasting an extensive base of component manufacturers that supply both domestic and global automakers.

The NITI Aayog-Crisil report indicates that localization efforts, close collaboration with Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEMs), and joint ventures with global suppliers have led to Indian auto component manufacturers increasingly integrating into global logistics. Auto component exports reached approximately $7.5 billion in the fiscal year 2025, with Indian suppliers serving markets in Europe, North America, and Asia.

With this supplier base in place, the next challenge is expanding localization to more advanced automotive technologies. The government's PLI-Auto scheme requires that relevant advanced automotive technology products have at least 50 percent value addition within the country while stimulating investment across the entire automotive chain. This scheme has attracted investments worth ₹44,326 crore and provided 67,820 jobs by March 2026, giving the automotive sector an advantage over industries that are still trying to build their internal supplier networks from scratch.

Smartphones are growing, components lag

Smartphones are perhaps the most obvious recent success story of Indian manufacturing. Government data shows that 99.2 percent of mobile phones used in India are now manufactured domestically, and India has become the second-largest mobile phone producer globally by volume, as well as a net exporter. Smartphones have also become India's leading individual export item in the fiscal year 2025-26.

However, mass production does not equate to complete self-sufficiency. Much of this activity involves assembling imported components rather than manufacturing them locally. An external assessment of the PLI scheme for mobile manufacturing found that the domestic value addition was only 23 percent in the fiscal year 2023-24, meaning that more than three-quarters of the phone's cost still comes from foreign parts.

To bridge this gap, the government is shifting the focus from simple assembly to creating core sub-components domestically. Through initiatives like the Electronic Component Manufacturing Scheme, India is encouraging local production of vital inputs such as printed circuit boards, camera modules, and display components.

Solar power is growing, but localization lags

India's solar energy manufacturing capacity has significantly increased. Solar module manufacturing capacity grew from 2.3 GW in 2014 to approximately 172 GW by March 2026, and domestic solar installations have also risen sharply.

Nevertheless, the deeper value chain remains heavily reliant on imports. The NITI Aayog-Crisil report estimates import dependency at approximately 100 percent for polysilicon, over 90 percent for wafers, over 60 percent for solar cells, and over 40 percent for modules.

The government is now promoting upstream manufacturing, including a proposed pathway under the Approved List of Models and Manufacturers for domestic production of ingots and wafers starting from June 2028.

Electric vehicles are growing, batteries lag

Electric vehicles are also moving towards greater localization, although their biggest vulnerability lies beneath the vehicle itself. EV sales grew by approximately 25 percent year-on-year in the fiscal year 2026 to 2.45 million units, according to Federation of Automobile Dealers Association (FADA) data.

However, the sector remains dependent on imported lithium-ion batteries and critical minerals, making the supply chain vulnerable to disruptions and changes in global trade policy. Government policy is aimed at addressing this gap. The ₹18,100 crore PLI scheme for advanced chemistry cells aims to create domestic battery manufacturing capacity of 50 GWh. By May 2026, 40 GWh had been allocated to four beneficiaries, and one 1.4 GWh plant was established.

Telecom scales up, but imports persist

Telecommunication equipment most clearly demonstrates the gap between production and true localization. The NITI Aayog-Crisil report states that Indian companies have expanded the production of products such as optical fiber cables, routers, switches, and premises equipment. However, domestic value addition remains limited as manufacturers still rely heavily on imported semiconductors, radio frequency modules, integrated circuits, and processors. Localization for several telecom products remains below 15 percent.

The gap is even wider for certain telecom products. Domestic localization stands at only 4 percent for 4G/LTE base stations and 5 percent for 5G base stations. It is even lower for switches, at 3 percent, while GPON optical network terminals have a localization of 12 percent. India's telecommunications equipment exports remain modest—between $0.6 and $1 billion annually, compared to imports of around $4–$5 billion, further illustrating the scope of work required to build a deeper domestic component ecosystem.

India's efforts to develop its manufacturing industry are now shifting from scale to increasing domestic value addition. Recent government initiatives are increasingly focused on creating components, sub-assemblies, and critical technologies located deeper in the supply chains.