- Thursday, January 16, 2025
By: Shubham Ghosh
Indian finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Tuesday (10) urged Indian communities residing abroad to use India’s brands and services as part of their role as the nation’s brand ambassadors overseas and try to collaborate with Indian businesses — big or small.
According to an Indian Express report, the minister said while addressing a plenary session of the three-day Pravasi Bharatiya Divas in the city of Indore in the central Indian state of Madhya Pradesh that the Indian society now offers several opportunities to the diaspora, unlike in the past till the economy was liberalised in 1991.
In her opening remarks, the 63-year-old Sitharaman lauded the Indian diaspora and said that the community has come up as an “exemplar” by making contributions wherever they live, while holding on to their roots.
“You have been a community which has made India very proud,” she said.
The finance minister also referred to prime minister Narendra Modi’s assertion made during the event this year that Indians living abroad are the country’s brand ambassadors. She said the diaspora needed to explore new ways to take part in the country’s development trajectory and point out errors in administrative policies to scale the heights.
“It means you are going to promote India, promote Indian brands and for that brand to be worthy of promotion, you have to tell us that please do this, please do not do this. You will also, where possible, make sure to use India-produced goods and services. So that even as you promote Indian brands, you are seen as processing, using and dispensing India-made goods and services,” she said.
According to India’s ministry of external affairs, as on December 31, 2021, there were 3.2 crore (32 million) NRIs and PIOs living abroad as on December 25, 2021.
Sitharaman also appealed to the diaspora communities to partner with Indian businesses, “small, medium, big or nano”.
“So that India in the next 25 years gets your potential for the entrepreneurial skills that you may have. So that Indian businesses here get that advantage from you and together we develop the country by 2047,” she said.
The minister also pointed out India is among the largest recipients of remittances from people working overseas.
In 2022, the amount was $100 billion, she said, adding that it was a 12 per cent rise from 2021, despite the disruptions caused by the Covid-19 pandemic.
