Describing services sector growth in India as a "low hanging fruit", Finance Minister Arun Jaitley Wednesday said the 'Make in India' programme has to be competitive in price terms in order to boost exports."Services sector growth is a low hanging fruit in India. What is made in India has to be comepetitive in terms of prices," Jaitley said here at a services conclave organised jointly by the commerce ministry and the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII)."We have to bring down prices of the products manufactured in India because consumers are going to buy products that are cheaper and of good quality. There is no patriotism in international trade," he added.
Services make up a major 57 percent share in the country's gross domestic product (GDP), while annual exports are worth over $150 billion.Explaining that as finance minister he had a "vested interest in the service sector doing well" because it helps to cover the deficit in India's merchandise exports, Jaitley said the shrinking share of the manufacturing sector to only 15 percent of the economy means the country has to pursue service exports aggressively."The manufacturing sector has partly shrunk and unable to absorb the underemployment in agriculture. Services is an area where we need to be aggressive. We cannot afford to be defensive," Jaitley said.However, the $151 billion of India's services exports make up only 3.3 percent of global exports and is dominated by IT and IT-enabled services. The country, therefore, needs to expand the export basket to push other services like healthcare and tourism, said Commerce Secretary Rajeev Kher, addressing the conference.