New Delhi, May 15 (IANS): India will set up national manufacturing and investment zones (NMIZs) which will help make the country a manufacturing hub for both domestic and international markets, commerce and industry minister Anand Sharma said here Friday.

"We are working on launching a national manufacturing policy by the end of this year and we have already circulated a discussion paper, inviting comments from all stakeholders in this regard. We also intend to establish NMIZs to push the manufacturing share in our GDP," Sharma said addressing the members of the consultative committee of his ministry.

"The proposed national manufacturing policy for these NMIZs would act as key enablers in driving the growth of the sector in India," he said.

The Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion has recently floated a paper for setting up NMIZs which would provide a package of incentives and policy reforms to push the sector.

Each zone would have production units, public utilities, logistics, environment protection mechanisms and residential areas.

Sharma said the NMIZs would increase the share of manufacturing in the country's gross domestic product to 25-35 percent by 2022 and double the employment level in the sector.

The share of manufacturing in the GDP is around 16 percent at present.

"This should be somewhere in the range of 25 percent to 35 percent. This requires manufacturing sector to keep growing in double digits in the next decade," Sharma said.