Coming down heavily on the Congress-led UPA government policies that affected the economy, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman today said quick fix Free Trade Agreements (FTAs) signed during the Congress rule killed manufacturing.

During her reply in the Rajya Sabha on appropriation bills, Sitharaman said, “They (Congress) had a lot of quick fix FTAs, which actually killed our manufacturing. Today, our commerce minister is struggling to have those FTAs hurriedly done during their period reviewed. They were loosely worded, and had so many things that were ready giveaways for our partner countries.”  

“It is good if you want to give market access. But we did not get anything equally for ourselves. So the commerce ministry is sitting and asking those countries to review the FTAs signed during the UPA time. That hurried rushing into the FTA, the hurried bringing into the context the manufacturing policy has not delivered. On the contrary, it has hurt us,” Sitharaman said, adding that the opposition must believe in ‘Make in India’, as it is already giving results.

The Finance Minister said the Modi government’s “Make in India” policy has delivered good results, specifically mentioning that the defence sector has become a net exporter on the back of the policy. “We took step after step after step to strengthen the manufacturing in the country,” the FM said, while adding the Congress party is taking a ‘vicarious’ pleasure in slamming Make in India.

“Make in India has made the defence sector a net exporter. Defence exports now earn Rs 30,000 crore. Congress had a hypocritic approach to ‘Make in India’. Congress remained in power between 2004 and 2014 and came up with a national manufacturing policy. It took them seven years to formulate the policy and they said they will achieve 25% of manufacturing share in GDP. They did not move an inch and people moved them out,” said Sitharaman.