New Delhi, Nov 2 (IANS): The Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) on Tuesday partnered the India Cellular and Electronics Association (ICEA) to work towards increasing exports and the share in global value chains (GVCs) to reach the goal of a $1 trillion digital economy.

The ICEA, which is the apex industry body for the mobile and electronics industry, along with MeitY released a vision document -- a call to action which analyses the challenges and outlines key success factors for increasing electronics exports, while benchmarking against competing nations. It makes recommendations to increase scale, competitiveness and domestic value addition over the next 1000 days.

In his address to the Heads of Indian Missions on August 6, as well as in his Independence Day speech this year, Prime Minister Narendra Modi had urged stakeholders to increase exports and share in GVCs, by making products made in India, globally competitive.

"The Prime Minister's mandate is crystal clear. We are preparing a 1000-day plan to broaden and deepen electronics manufacturing, exports and share in GVCs. This vision document will be a critical input in policymaking. It highlights the collaborative effort between industry and government," said Rajeev Chandrasekhar, Minister of State, Ministry of Electronics and IT and Skill Development and Entrepreneurship.

"To make India stand out as an electronics export and manufacturing hub globally, the focus has to be on building scale and exports through GVCs established by lead firms and their Tier 1, 2 and 3 manufacturers. These firms bring the requisite experience and train the local manpower. They also bring with them the experience of setting up production, production processes, operating high-tech manufacturing with customized machinery, and supply-chain procurement experience," he added.

The vision document is the first of a two-part series. The second volume will present productwise strategies and forecasts as part of the campaign to build a $1 trillion digital economy, in pursuit of reaching $5 trillion GDP.

The vision document makes recommendations on short-term (1-4 years) and long-term (5-10 years) strategies to increase electronics exports from India, shift the ecosystem as part of capturing the China+1 investments, and expand exports by increasing competitiveness and scale.

It also explores in-depth, the linkages between scale, exports and domestic value addition in electronics. It identifies key electronic products, namely mobile phones, IT hardware, hearables/wearables etc, which provide the highest potential for exports, given massive global demand for these products.