Investment in logistics to touch $500 billion by 2025, says Suresh Prabhu

July 30, 2016: Expenditure on investment in logistics, including infrastructure, will touch $500 billion, annually, by 2025, union minister of commerce and industry Suresh Prabhu has said. He further said that this will create millions of jobs and also do away with the hurdles hampering India’s internal and global trade.

The minister said that Logistics Wing has been created in the Department of Commerce for the integrated development of this sector. Due to these efforts, infrastructure status has been granted to warehousing, cold chains and multimodal logistics parks. The ministry is working on a National Logistics Policy and also bringing out a policy on the development of multi-modal logistics parks to be announced soon.

Further, the minister said that the cost and speed of logistics at present is hindering the market share that Indian products deserve and in order to solve these issues in an integrated and holistic way, the Centre for Trade Facilitation and Logistics (CTFL) has been given a mandate by Department of Commerce (Logistics Division) to prepare a plan and act for objectives like bringing together industry, academia, governments and organisations of national and international level, to work on the key supply chain and logistics, management challenges facing firms in the globalised environment; training and building the required human resource skills through appropriate training and academic programs and creating a cadre of trade facilitation and logistics management experts/professionals; and imparting training to government officials who are working in the logistics and trade facilitation sectors.

The ministry has agreed to provide a block one-time funding support of 80.00 lakhs towards initial infrastructure and a phase wise support of 339.90 lakhs for four years. This centre will attempt to document and monitor the trade and logistics activities and suggest suitable measures for its improvement. The minister also released the logo of logistics division.