New Delhi, Sep 13 (IANS): Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Tuesday said many countries have shown interest in having rupee trade with India.

Speaking at the Mindmine Summit 2022 here, Sitharaman said that positive response has come from many nations across the world, which have said that it is possible to have rupee trade with India.

She informed that the Centre is enabling interoperability of platforms to make this possible.

During the course of her speech, Sitharaman asked domestic companies to be more participative in the manufacturing sector under the productivity linked investment schemes (PLIs).

"What is stopping you when FPIs are coming to India?," she queried.

Referring to the reforms lined up for the next 25 years, she said that while planning for the economy, the litmus test would be to ensure that how they can benefit the workforce of the country.

Participating in the conference, Chief Economic Adviser V. Anantha Nageswaran underlined the need to remove the "middleman" culture.

He also sought removal of restrictions on MSMEs at the micro level, in order to bring them into the economic mainstream.

Nageswaran, while speaking on data security, said that there is a need to have data protection architecture in place in the country.

On whether the rupee is being defended by the government, he said that it can look after itself and does not need any defence.