Maharashtra to be $1 trillion economy, says Devendra Fadnavis

Mumbai: Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis expressed confidence about Maharashtra becoming a trillion-dollar economy very soon. He cited the reason as huge investment in infrastructure and subsequently, increased foreign direct investment (FDI) in the state last year. 

Fadnavis was speaking at the 5th edition of the Progressive Maharashtra Summit organised by industry body FICCI in the city. “Maharashtra is on track to becoming a trillion-dollar economy, given the impetus to infrastructure development in the past three years.”

The theme of this year’s summit is “Maharashtra 2025: Leapfrogging to the $1 Trillion Economy”. Noting that the state has always been a leader in business and industry in the country, the CM said that there had been times when Maharashtra’s leadership position was "threatened, challenged and compromised" to some extent.

"However, I should tell you that in the last three years of our government, we have been successful in bringing the state back to its leadership position in the country," he asserted.

Using FDI metrics in Maharashtra as an indicator, Fadnavis said that the state accounted for more than half of the country’s FDI last year, which showed the confidence of global investors. There used to be very close competition between Delhi, Karnataka and Gujarat in terms of attracting FDI, he said. In 2016-17, 53 per cent of overall FDI came into Maharashtra. Fadnavis stressed that reforms being taken up by the government were paving the way for making India globally competitive. We have the demography, democracy and demand," he said, adding that when the world population was ageing, 50 per cent of India's population was below 35 years of age. “This demographic dividend can be leveraged to transform Maharashtra into a manufacturing hub to cater to domestic and global demand," he explained.

Fadnavis observed that the Maharashtra government had created infrastructure projects to the tune of '5.96 lakh crore and was looking at setting up more projects worth '1 lakh crore, going forward. This, he said, would create a lot of jobs in the services sector and enable delivery based on information, communication and technology (ICT).