Giving a push to the mega National Manufacturing Investment Zones (NMIZs),proposed under the new manufacturing policy,the RBI today allowed the developers to raise overseas loans under the ECB route. For raising capital under the external commercial borrowing (ECB) route,the developers,however would have to take prior permission of the Reserve Bank. "Keeping in view the infrastructural needs of the proposed NMIZs,it has now been decided to allow developers of NMIZ also to avail of ECB under the 'approval route' for providing infrastructure facilities within the NMIZ.," the central bank said in a notification. The National Manufacturing Policy (NMP) has proposed setting up of NMIZs or mega industrial parks with modern infrastructure. Initially seven locations,including in Maharashtra,Rajashtan and Gujarat,have been identified for setting up NMIZs. Earlier,ECB was allowed only for telecom,railways,road,sea port and airport,industrial parks,urban infrastructure,mining,refining and exploration and cold storage or cold room facility. Besides,developers of SEZ were also allowed to raise ECB. Recently industry leaders during their meeting with Commerce,Industry and Textiles Minister Anand Sharma had expressed concerns over the state of manufacturing in India and also complained that the National Manufacturing Policy (NMP) was not being implemented in its true spirit. NMP aims at increasing the share of manufacturing in the GDP to 25 per cent from the current 14-16 per cent by 2020 and create additional 100 million jobs by then.
