Prime Minister Modi’s landmark Make in India programme is in many ways the flagship in his reform armada

The major objective behind Make in India is to focus on job creation and skill enhancement in 25 separate sectors of the economy, while also delivering high quality standards and minimising the impact on the environment. It is a programme that Modi has played up as the crucial plank in India’s growth story, and a key creator of jobs for India’s growing pool of young workers.

But perhaps the programme’s biggest success has been its ability to attract increased foreign investment into India, from countries eager to collaborate. This had led to India emerging as the top destination globally for foreign direct investment (FDI), since the introduction of Make in India, surpassing both the United States of America and China, receiving US$75 billion in FDI in 2016-17.

This willingness to include foreign involvement in the campaign has spelt good news for UK companies. There has been significant collaboration, and sharing of expertise between UK and Indian companies as part of the scheme – seen most recently in the defence sector, where UK Defence Secretary Michael Fallon and Finance Minister Arun Jaitley, agreed in April 2017 to enhance defence ties based on the joint development and production of weapons at Indian facilities, under the Make in India umbrella.

This truly is a transformative campaign, and its global status has acted as an inspiration for other similar campaigns around the world. Indeed, President Trump’s promises to ‘Make in America’ during the US election campaign almost had a Modi-esque echo.

Next in this series: Smart Cities Mission