'India Inc should focus on investment, not trade'

Indian Inc needs to shift its focus from trade to investment in order to compete with China, Minister of State for Commerce and Power Jairam Ramesh said.

Indian Inc needs to shift its focus from trade to investment in order to compete with China, Minister of State for Commerce and Power Jairam Ramesh said in New Delhi on Monday.

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In his address at the India-Africa business summit, Ramesh said India cannot compete with China in terms of lines of credit to increase trade, and should hence become more aggressive by creating value-addition of African products through enhanced investment.

"The total exposure for the Exim Bank in Africa is about $3 billion, which is perhaps the line of credit by China to a single country," he said.

"India also needs to be more serious, aggressive and ruthless in value-addition of African products within the continent," Ramesh said, and cited the example of the diamond and cashew sectors, where raw products are sourced from Africa for value addition in India.

The minister said India's advantage over Africa was its human resource talent, and that it could share its technical expertise with African countries.