Commerce Minister Piyush Goyal addresses the Citi India Conference 2026 virtually, highlighting India’s trade agreements, industrial reforms and infrastructure push to global investors.

Union Minister of Commerce and Industry, Shri Piyush Goyal virtually delivered the keynote address at the Citi India Conference 2026 in Mumbai on June 4, 2026, describing India as the world’s most trusted investment destination and the only credible alternative manufacturing hub for global businesses.

Goyal stated that his recent engagements with investors and around 50 companies in New York and Toronto reinforced strong global confidence in India’s economic prospects, with the proposed India–Canada Free Trade Agreement drawing a positive response from pension funds, insurance companies and other institutional investors.

He noted that the Oman Free Trade Agreement came into effect on June 1, 2026 and that at least two to three additional substantive Free Trade Agreements are expected to come into force within the next six months, with India aiming to operationalise all nine recently concluded agreements covering 38 economies within the next nine to ten months. He also cited Hyundai’s entry into India in 1999 with an investment of approximately USD 200 million and JCB’s manufacturing presence in India, from which it now exports to nearly 130 countries, as evidence of India’s ability to support manufacturing at scale for both domestic and global markets.

Goyal highlighted several recent domestic reforms and investment enablers. The Jan Vishwas Act 2.0, passed in April 2026, decriminalised nearly 1,000 offences across multiple central laws where there was no intention to cheat and no threat to public safety or public health. The Bhavya Scheme for the development of 100 industrial parks across the country carries an outlay of nearly USD 3.5 billion and aims to provide plug-and-play infrastructure including factory-ready facilities, worker housing, environmental clearances and digital infrastructure. Four labour codes consolidating 29 labour laws have now been activated with several states adopting and amending their rules.

India is investing nearly USD 130 billion in ports, highways, roads, rural connectivity and airports, with port and airport capacities having doubled over the past decade. The Minister stated that India plans to double renewable energy capacity from 250 GW to 500 GW over the next five years, that Tata and ASML are setting up India’s first capital equipment manufacturing facility for the semiconductor industry and that data centres serving global markets will enjoy income tax exemptions until 2047, the year by which India aims to become a developed nation with a USD 30 trillion economy under the Viksit Bharat 2047 vision.

Source: Press Information Bureau (PIB)

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