FICCI 98th AGM curtain raiser: Piyush Goyal calls on India Inc to focus on manufacturing, skilling, innovation

New Delhi [India], November 18 : Union Commerce Minister Piyush Goyal on Tuesday assured all possible government support to India Inc, addressing the curtain raiser of the 98th AGM and Annual Convention of industry chamber FICCI, he urged the Indian industry leaders to focus on few areas that include making the country a manufacturing hub, skilling the millennial workforce, enabling investment friendly ecosystem, and imbibing cutting edge technologies.

Addressing the FICCI event, Piyush Goyal said the government will focus on physical discipline and build a strong economic foundation, provide enablers, bring a deep focus on innovation, build a culture of research and development of ingenious capabilities, and provide connectivity and critical infrastructure required for India Inc.

"We'll give you opportunities for commerce, a greater degree of trade possibilities around the world with more and more well-meaning, balanced, free trade agreements (FTAs) in consultation with all of you, protecting Indian interests to the maximum level, but still, it has to be a two-way trade. We'll also give you a corruption-free government," the commerce minister said.

At the curtain-raiser for the 98th Annual General Meeting of the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FICCI), Piyush Goyal called upon industry leaders to unite in delivering the "last push" that would propel India into becoming the world's third-largest economy and set it firmly on the path toward a Viksit Bharat by 2047.

Goyal reflected on FICCI's origins, recalling how Mahatma Gandhi himself had encouraged its formation as a federation that would represent Indian industry. Mahatma Gandhi and Piyush Goyal noted that FICCI was not merely a business body, but a custodian of economic nationalism at a time when India was still under colonial rule.

Goyal said FICCI had long been viewed as a symbol of India's economic self-respect. This legacy, he emphasised, positions the chamber in a "bold position" today, enabling it to shape national industrial thought across every region.

He highlighted that India's larger challenge is not unemployment but underemployment, and that skill developmentnot merely big degreesis the key to solving it.

Encouraging businesses to move beyond comfort zones, he said that even small-scale innovations in processes, services, and operations can collectively create a nationwide industrial revolution.

"We need to get out of our comfort zone. We need to be willing to explore the unknown a little more. And if each one of your 250,000 members thinks about innovation, they go small in their own way. Every organisation has the capabilities to innovate, to change business processes, technology levels, way of working, and way of providing service. There's always scope, we can actually have a revolution around the country of industrial growth and bring innovation at the highest cutting-edge level," Piyush Goyal said.

FICCI's 98th Annual Convention and Annual General Meeting is set to be held on November 28-29, 2025 at Bharat Mandapam.

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