Minister of State in the Ministry of Commerce and Industry said that Make in India initiative has made significant achievements and presently focuses on 27 sectors under Make in India 2.0. Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade is coordinating action plans for manufacturing sectors, while Department of Commerce is coordinating service sectors. Accordingly, the Govt. is making continuous efforts under Investment Facilitation for implementation of Make in India action plans to identify potential investors. Investment Outreach activities are being carried out for enhancing international co-operation for promoting FDI and improve Ease of Doing Business in the country.

Investment in R&D in terms of Gross Expenditure on R&D (GERD) has been consistently increasing over the years and during the last 10 years, the GERD of India in gross terms has increased by 3 times. Govt. has been making concerted efforts to encourage private sector to invest into R&D. Corporates can invest in technology business incubators or contribute in research efforts carried out by institutions and national research laboratories as a part of their CSR. Several steps have been taken to incentivize the private sector’s R&D participation by improving the ease of doing business in the STI activities; introducing flexible tools for public procurement; creating avenues for collaborative STI funding through portfolio-based funding mechanisms such as Public-Private-Partnerships and other innovative hybrid funding mechanisms.

Centre has formed 11 committees, each led by a ministry, to prepare action plans for transitioning from a linear to a circular economy in their respective focus areas. Aiming to deal with e-waste as part of the larger plan of the govt. to encourage circular economy or ensuring zero to minimal wastage in the use of electronics and electrical sector, the Ministry of Electronics & Information Technology has formulated a policy paper that deals with these issues. The paper, "Circular Economy in Electronics and Electrical Sector," focuses on the life cycle of electronics including stages of raw material acquisition, design, manufacturing /production stage, consumption to end of life (e-waste) management, and secondary raw materials utilisation.

India makes clean energy commitments at UN summit India at the first leader-level meeting on energy under the UN General Assembly in 40 years has made commitments to increase renewable energy installed capacity to 450 GW by 2030 and develop and implement a National Hydrogen Energy Mission to scale up annual green hydrogen production to 1 MT by 2030. Also, it announced to begin a Production Linked Incentive Scheme to add 10 GW solar PV manufacturing capacity by 2025. India's announcements were among new multi-billion-dollar commitments made to countries to increase renewables and access to electricity and clean cooking technologies.

The parties have agreed to launch negotiations on key issues such as market access, investment protection and geographical indications. Talks with the EU on a free trade agreement are set to begin later this month after eight years with the commerce ministry scheduling a meeting among the stakeholders. Sources said the dates for the first few sessions with the EU representative have been set before the end of this month. The parties have agreed to launch negotiations on key issues such as market access, investment protection and geographical indications. The preliminary talks on the Broad-based Trade and Investment Agreement (BTIA) will be based on the initial recommendations of industry groups.

India and UK are aiming to launching the negotiations on FTA by November 2021. Proposed FTA between India & UK is expected to unlock extraordinary business opportunity and generate jobs. Both sides have renewed their commitment to boosting trade in a manner which benefits all. Since the ‘Declaration’ on launch of Enhanced Trade Partnership, announced by Prime Ministers on 4th May 2021, both countries have made substantial progress on various aspects of partnership.

A one-stop-shop for investors to obtain approvals, promote ease of doing business’ Commerce and Industry Minister, launched the single-window portal for investors and businesses. The portal will serve as a one-stop-shop for investors for approvals and clearances. The National Single Window System (NSWS) will usher in a change from the legacy of running to government offices and will promote the ease of doing business, said the Minister at the launch.

The portal, hosts approvals across 18 Central Departments and nine States, and another 14 Central Departments and five States will be added by December 2021,” according to an official statement.