Pre-Budget Expectations by Mr. Sudhin Mathur- Director-Smartphones, Lenovo Group
The previous year witnessed pioneering schemes to attract investments in the country for increasing domestic manufacturing. The policy on duty differential has been effective in attracting significant manufacturing of smartphones. We saw good growth for mobile phones as nearly 100 million devices were locally produced according to the Indian Cellular Association. However, this number has to further go up if India is to truly become the global innovation and manufacturing hub. This would require focus on addressing factors that would make manufacturing globally competitive. Manufacturing companies in emerging and high growth sectors need to be given a shot in the arm in the form of simplified tax structure, better infrastructure and robust component ecosystem. Appropriate budgetary allocations need to be made for this. The Budget should also focus on electronic R&D including innovation and design.
Though not directly related to the Union Budget, one also really hopes that the GST Bill too gets passed soon and we have better labour laws that aid manufacturing and employment generation.
