Adoption of global standards will improve our productivity: Vice President Delivers Sir M. Visvesvaraya Memorial Lecture

Mumbai, December 27, 2016

The major challenges presently facing our economy include an increasing trade deficit and the need to generate employment for millions of youth joining the workforce. Stating this while delivering the Sir M. Visvesaraya memorial lecture at the World Trade Centre in Mumbai today, the Vice President of India Shri Hamid Ansari stressed that Indian manufacturing needs to improve in terms of productivity and efficiency to compete in a globalised workplace. Manufcturing sector growth can be the tipping point for increasing GDP in India, he added.

Shri Ansari said “there is no dearth of human resources and technical competence in our country. The Government has rolled out policies and regulations including the flagship Make in India ,to encourage manufacturing in India. In order to enhance productivity and quality of Indian manufacturing to make it more competitive in the international arena, observers have emphasised the need for early adoption of global standards in conjugation with other measures”.

The Vice President said that technology has been the principle driver of globalisation .He emphasised “global standards are becoming an increasingly important factor in our way of life ensuring the safety and quality of products and services, facilitating international trade and improving the environment in which we live”.

Speaking on International business Shri Ansari said that countries desiring to participate in International business need to adopt standard conventions and model laws that major trading nations have already implemented as part of their law. The adoption of such uniform laws creates an enabling environment to facilitate international trade and investment

The Vice President said that global technology standard has become the source of a core competitive edge for industrial development .He further said that the global standardization process needs to become much more transparent so that interested parties can better understand the potential competitive effects of particular standards. He said “effective participation in standardization projects requires a multidisciplinary view that includes business, commerce, trade and public policy issues such as health, safety, environment, sustainability, ethics and an assessment of potential legal risks in addition to engineering, scientific and technology skills”.