CII demands infrastructure support to boost manufacturing in medical technology
India is a large producer of certain medical equipment and export incentives are available for some products.However, there is a need for further capacity building in this segment along with focus on quality enhancement for further reduction in imports, said the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII). The industry body has sent a list of recommendations to the Department of Pharmaceuticals (DoP) and sought infrastructure support to boost manufacturing in the medical technology sector, in line with the government’s ‘Make in India’ mission. Key recommendations include attracting big global medical technology companies to create a base for components ecosystem, enhance local manufacturing capability and establish ancillary industry to ensure significant value addition in finished medical equipment. The CII also asked the government to ensure 4% exports incentives for the sector, besides providing corrected inverted duty structure and lowering customs import duty on raw materials to encourage domestic manufacturing in the sector. Making a strong pitch for indigenous manufacturing, Himanshu Baid,Chairman, CII Medical Technology Department, said, “Without the availability of indigenous components, the PMA policy will not yield any results, as already seen in the electronics and IT hardware sector since the last four years.” For the implementation of Preferential Market Access (PMA) policy in medical equipment and devices industry, experts suggested the government to promote the components and ancillary industry saying, “Making in Indiais not possible in this technology-driven sectorwithout that.” There is a need to properly analyze the components manufacturing capabilities in India before implementing PMA policy in medical devices and equipment sector, Baid said. In order to improve overall quality standards,CII also urged Indian manufacturers to learn evolving quality standards from countries which made a head-start in innovations in this space. There are several misconceptions being spread about the medical technology industry among stakeholders. Therefore, it is important to build a positive environment which makes a business case and opens doors for investors to start manufacturing in this sector, thus paving the way for the ‘Make in India’ initiative, it said.
August 11, 2015 | 2:31pm IST.
to success.