Chemicals and petrochemicals market grow to US$300bn by 2025
To attract foreign participation, the government is revisiting policies for the chemical and petrochemical sector which would expand export market reach across Latin America and Caribbean (LAC), DV Sadananda Gowda, Minister for Chemicals & Fertilizers, has told a conference on 14 Oct 2020.
There is a need to extend India and LAC cooperation at regional and bilateral levels following on to their achievements on a lot of global issues on various multilateral and global platforms, he underlined the importance of growing globally.
Addressing a virtual session on ‘Reimagining Distances’, during FICCI LEADS 2020 on 14 Oct 2020, Gowda emphasized on the potentials in the Indian pharmaceuticals, fertilizers and petrochemicals sector.
India, the largest supplier of generic medicines to the world, is the only country with largest number of US-FDA-compliant Pharma plants (more than 262 including APIs) outside of USA.
India exports US$20 billion worth of pharma products to various countries including high standards complying countries like US and Europe.
Furthering global prospects, the government has also launched a scheme of developing 7 Mega parks, 3 Bulk drugs and 4 Medical devices park across the country,” he added.
New manufacturers will also be eligible for the Production-Linked Incentives (PLI) scheme and this is a very good time to invest in India and set up manufacturing base in the Indian pharma sector, Gowda assured.
He highlighted the potential for investment in the Indian Chemicals and Petrochemicals sector, pointing out the market would grow to US$300 billion by 2025 from around US$165 billion currently.
To meet the growing demands, India would need 5 crackers by 2025 and an additional 14 by 2040 along with a cumulative investment of US$65 billion, he said.
“To attract foreign participation, the government is revisiting policies for chemical and petrochemical sector,” he impressed.
“We are working to extend financial incentives based on sales similar to what is being extended in our pharmaceutical sector. We are also tweaking our policies to strengthen our chemical industrial cluster which we call as PCPIRs and plastic parks.
“Together, these supportive government policies will offer one of the best environments to do business in India as far as chemicals & petrochemical sector is concerned,” Gowda stressed.
“We would welcome any proposal in these sectors and extend all possible handholding in India wherever it will be required,” he assured.
Highlighting the potential of the Indian fertilizers sector, the Minister pointed out that India requires a huge quantity of fertilizers in the agriculture sector.
“Domestic production is not enough to meet the requirements hence we are dependent on imports, he noted.
“Since the LAC region is also a net importer of chemicals and fertilizers, instead of competing in the market as buyers, we should be cooperating to make supply chains more efficient so that adequate quantity can be sourced at competitive prices.”
Gowda also emphasized the need for collaboration and development of alternative fertilizers like Nano fertilizers which can reduce requirement and hence reduce dependence on imports.
“I welcome companies to come forward on this proposal for joint R&D and collaboration for the development of alternative fertilizers,” he added. #pharma #manufacturing #investment #exports #fertilizers #chemicals /fiinews.com
