Union Minister of Commerce & Industry and Civil Aviation, Suresh Prabhu, today chaired a meeting in New Delhi on the issue of stepping up domestic production of goods across key sectors, to increase domestic availability and promote economic growth and export capacity.

The meeting was attended by Secretaries of 16Ministries and Departments of Government of India. Discussions were held on steps to be taken by the Ministries and Departments to ramp up domestic production through better capacity utilization and capacity creation and expansion in the short and medium to long term.

Key ministries were asked to examine measures on diversification of export base and increase domestic production in order to deal with merchandise trade deficit.

The Commerce Minister also emphasized the need for increasing the capital inflows in addition to increasing domestic production, an issue to be handled by Department of Economic Affairs and Reserve Bank of India.

Domestic production drive to boost availability, diversify exports and attract capital inflows to support industrial expansion. The meeting, chaired by the Commerce Minister, directed Secretaries of multiple ministries to raise domestic production through improved capacity utilization and capacity creation, pursue export diversification to address the merchandise trade deficit, and coordinate with fiscal and monetary authorities to increase capital inflows to support production expansion.