MAKE IN INDIA Invest India

The most awarded investment promotion agency in the world, Invest India is the advisor, guide, and facilitator to every investor looking to make a home in India. We are the first point of contact for global companies whom we handhold from the day they start exploring India as an investment destination and at every step of the way throughout their journey in the world's most liberal investment destination.

Its multi-faceted activities include detailed India entry strategies and research, end-toend handholding, and investment aftercare. They work with every major country around the world, and across all Indian states. Their team, comprised of over 200 of the finest, most talented business professionals handpicked from India's and indeed the world's best universities and companies serve as investors' pro bono guide to developing the best India strategy. From assisting with land acquisition to highlighting infrastructure projects for investment, showcasing cuttingedge innovation and start-ups, and world-class research, the various teams at Invest India offer each new investor the panoramic scope of the India opportunity and ways to navigate it.

From supporting India's expanding start-up ecosystem to harnessing the power of innovation from India's laboratories and bringing them to the market or identifying, developing, and deploying technologies on-ground, Invest India's work covers the entire gamut of India's transformational business sector.

Working with every department of the government of India, its expertise in providing advice and assistance is consistently rated best in the world. Most recently, we were awarded the Investment Promotion Award, 2020 by the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development for our good practices during the pandemic.

India's rapid development has opened a plethora of exciting opportunities for investors, which can be explored on our website. We are grateful for your interest in India and excited to become a part of your journey in our country.

ODOP spotlight on the royal WangkheiPhee

By Bethamehi Joy Syiem and Sukriti Mishra

Among the textile products selected under the ‘One District, One Product’ list, WangkheiPhee from Imphal East District in Manipur features as a delicate handloom, made with very fine white cotton yarn with a closely woven texture. While it may not be a name as familiar as other ODOP textiles such as the famous Kancheepuram or Pashmina, it is a product with a life of its own.

A luxurious fabric

This delicate fabric is known as “WangkheiPhee” because it was first developed by skilled weavers in the Wangkhei area within the Imphal East District of Manipur, for the royal family. Today, it has been donned by the likes of Bollywood A-listers like Sushmita Sen and Kangana Ranaut with designs from Manipur’s top designer, Robert Naorem. Among the handloom fabrics he uses, the Geographical Indication (GI) tagged WangkheiPhee features prominently.

Today, the weavers are still weaving this special type of cloth at a wide scale across the state. It is also shown in Manipuri costume through ages (India, Bangladesh and Myanmar) published in 2011, p-123 by Mutua Bahadur. This “luxurious” cloth is a popular attire used by women during marriage ceremonies and festivals.

This piece of muslin cloth was originally made uniformly in white. Today, the cloth has its peculiar designs with different motifs and colours, such as khoi (hook), thambal (lotus), atargulap (rose), NamthangKhuthat, AngomNingthou (royal symbol), khongupmelei (a kind of orchid), thangjingtangkhai (half euryle ferox), numitchura (sunrise head gear), Jubakusum (floral), leaves, raining night, angoorcharong (grapes bunch). The design is used for luxurious items, such as, Inaphee (chaddar), Phanek (sarong/ladies’ lungies), dhoti, saree, skirts and as a model design for school uniforms.

How it is produced

The fibre used for making the yarn is derived from “lashing” (cotton ball) and “kabrang” (mulberry cocoon) and, also extracted from the bark of the “santhak” tree species. The fibre is spun into threads, and then dyed using extracts from plants, flowers, bark and leaves. The dyed yarn is subject to sizing through the application of rice-based starch, followed by stretching with a bamboo stick, and then wound onto bobbins and pirns.

Fine cotton is the type of yarn in the fabric used. The weaving process based on use of shuttles involves two methods: fly shuttle loom and throw shuttle loom. In the former, it is made as a single piece complete fabric. In the latter, two pieces of fabric are made and then joined by stitching to make it a full fabric. Additional motifs are woven in by hand. The fabric is “porous, airy, see-through and thin”, making it suitable for luxury items such as chadors, saris, skirts and school uniforms.

Three shuttles are used to produce WangkheiPhee. For the body weft thread, the conventional shuttle is used and for the extra weft, two smaller shuttles are used. When the fabric is woven with three shuttles on fly shuttle loom, two weavers are involved. However, if the fabric is woven on throw shuttle loom, only one weaver can weave since the width of the fabric is smaller.

Looking ahead

Robert Naorem is just one example of taking this local fabric beyond the state and to the world stage. With such unique and exquisite characteristics, Manipur’s WangkheiPhee is prime for the larger international market of luxury fabrics. With the ODOP initiative’s mandate to select, brand and promote chosen products with an aim to develop each district as a major export hub, WangkheiPhee’s turn to shine even further is just around the corner.

Innovations for rural India

The AGNIi Mission, in partnership with Common Service Center, successfully conducted a series of Digital Technology Showcases focused on innovations for rural India.

On 12th and 13th August, two 90-minute showcases were held in Bihar, to address the following concerns:

Drinking water issues due to contamination of water or lack of proper storage

Soil testing technologies with less technical dependency to ensure more farmers can use them easily

Storage technologies for vegetables and fruits

Drones for spraying of pesticides as due to land distribution in all major districts it becomes difficult to take heavy machinery from one farm to the other

Seven technologies were presented during the showcases reaffirming the capability of Indian innovations to tackle challenges faced by Indian villages:

Dharashakti: An easy-to-use soil organic carbon detection and testing kit

Tan 90: Portable cold storage units to plug the gaps in cold chain

Krishakti: Smart and intelligent precision spraying drones for crops

Avatar small wind turbine: Wind turbines deployed as decentralized and distributed renewable energy solutions for urban and rural India

Saptkrishi: A low-cost, technological solution that extends the shelf life of perishable horticultural produce.

Soil Saathi: A lightweight chemistry analyzer with the ability to test 22 parameters in soil and water and advise fertilizer requirements based on crop and agro-climatic conditions.

Thanos: A drone-based autonomous spraying platform that sprays an acre in a fraction of the time uniformly.

A total of 150 rural entrepreneurs participated in both showcases and were keen to hold advance discussions with the startups on implementing these solutions in their respective geographies.

The AGNIi Mission remains committed to introducing emerging technologies in rural India to address the complex and unique challenges it faces today.

Great places for manufacturing in India

As businesses worldwide gear up for the “new normal” post COVID-19, India has been steadfastly and proactively cementing its position as a resilient economy with swift action-oriented decision-making. It has emerged as a forerunner for business continuity plans, with its inventory of low risk and asset light models like readybuilt industrial infrastructure and build-to suit offering higher capex savings, new tax incentives offering increased profitability, and a domestic market comprising 18% of world population.

A stable and predictable business environment

India’s unprecedented rise in the World Bank’s Ease of Doing Business Rankings 2020 to

#63 (2019 - #77, 2014 - #142) is testament to its persistence, drive, and effort to become the world’s business destination of choice. Unparalleled legislative and procedural reforms have been implemented in the last 5 years. This will only gather further pace in the coming months as both central and state governments gear up to stimulate the economy and improve their attractiveness for investments across sectors. Most states have created single window mechanisms to grant permissions within stipulated time and have set service level agreements to grant permissions within 30 days, with provisions for deemed approval in cases of deviation. Information about industrial parks with plot-level details is being provided through GIS platforms. Dedicated relationship managers are being appointed to hand-hold investors through the entire project lifecycle. India has one of the most attractive corporate income tax rates for manufacturing and services investments. A special window for manufacturing investments is open till 31 March 2023 with an attractive corporate income tax rate of 17.16%, lowest among BRICS. Government of India has signed 300 Advance Pricing Agreements with MNCs to give them assurance on tax structure.

India — the engine for global manufacturing

Last five years accounted for over half of the FDI received by India since the liberalization era of early 90s, propelling India to top 3 greenfield FDI destinations. Interestingly, these investments came in diverse sectors ranging from highly sophisticated areas such as R&D centres and development centers for engineering, consumer internet, biotechnology, and pharmaceuticals to resource intensive industries such as food processing, chemicals & petrochemicals. India also attracted large scale investments in labor intensive manufacturing processes of electronics, textiles, and footwear industries. Poised to become the world’s third-largest consumer market within the next decade, India can safely be categorized as a growth engine for the foreseeable future.

For details please see “Great Places for Manufacturing in India World-class Destinations for Multinationals”, Volume 1, May 2020.

Source: Invest India, Government of India