India's services sector exports' basket can expand dramatically: Suresh Prabhu

economictimes.indiatimes.com:

India's services sector exports has the capacity to expand «dramatically», contributing in a big way to the Centre's USD 2-trillion target for shipments by 2030, former Union minister Suresh Prabhu said here on Friday. Prabhu, a former commerce and industry minister, said the nature, spectrum and volume of services exports will change significantly, given the element of human interaction and new technology involved in it.

«Services exports can create huge employment, as it is more labour-intensive than the manufacturing sector, which is becoming more and more mechanised. The services sector will always involve the human angle… and that can boost employment,» Prabhu told PTI.

He was speaking here on the sidelines of the MCCI Economists' Forum-Achieving USD 2 trillion exports by 2030. Prabhu also underscored the need for skilling in the services sector to convert quantity to quality.

The Union government had recently formulated an 'Action Plan for Champion Sectors in Services', which included information technology, tourism and hospitality, transport and logistics, medical value travel, legal, accounting and finance, and communication, among others. «I believe that the basket of India's services sector exports can expand dramatically, as there are so many avenues… take for example elderly care… this is going to be a very important aspect of services, and it can be facilitated remotely through technology,» Prabhu said.

On India's target of USD 2-trillion exports by 2030, Prabhu who is also a former railway minister said it is a «challenging, demanding and ambitious» goal, which will require strategies to be developed through wider consultation with stakeholders, and coming up with workable solutions. «You have to also keep