Country's manufacturing policy to be out soon: Sharma

The country's first manufacturing policy would come out soon and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh will chair a ministerial meeting on June 9 in this regard, Commerce and Industry Minister Anand Sharma said.

Such a policy, under which National Investment and Manufacturing Zones (NIMZS) are being planned as mega investment regions, would help increase the contribution of the manufacturing sector to the country''s GDP from 16% to 25% by 2025, he said.

The meeting, to discuss the draft manufacturing policy was initially scheduled for June 2 but was postponed, he said, adding, the policy will come out soon.

Sharma was speaking at a meeting organised by Federation of Indian Exports Organisation, Tiruppur Exports Association and industry body SICCI here.

The Ministry was aware that the manufacturing sector''s contribution to GDP was stagnating at 16% and added the situation has to be changed.

Earlier, he said the Ministry had embarked on digitalisation along with Directorate General of Foreign Trade to address grievances and complete procedures on time as the present practice involving paper work was time consuming.

The Ministry was also planning to bring in all other stake holders like ports and customs under the plan.

"This is a major step that has been taken (by the Ministry) ..with this we have already seen the backlog getting reduced from six months to two months...", he said.