Prime Minister Narendra Modi, while speaking at the 22nd Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) Summit on Friday, shared his vision of transforming India into a global manufacturing hub. 

“The world is overcoming the Covid-19 pandemic. Several disruptions occurred in the global supply chain because of the Covid-19 and Ukraine crises. We want to transform India into a manufacturing hub,” said the Prime Minister. 

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With a view to achieving this, Modi spoke of the need for cooperation between member states, stressing the importance of granting each other transit rights and asserting that better connectivity will be needed in the region to fight the global food and energy crisis. 

“The SCO needs to focus on bringing diversified and resilient supply chains… for this, better connectivity and access to transit is required,” PM Modi remarked while conveying India’s support for mutual trust and cooperation among the SCO countries.

The 2022 eight-nation summit that is being held in the historic city of Samarkand, Uzbekistan over two days kicked off on Thursday with some of the top leaders of the world in attendance. Apart from PM Modi, Russian President Vladimir Putin, Chinese Premier Xi Jinping, and Pakistan’s Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif among others are also attending the summit.

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Modi also stressed the need to focus on people-centric development, pointing to India’s thriving innovation and start-up model as a step in the right direction. “We are focussing on a people-centric development model. We are supporting innovation in every sector. Today there are more than 70,000 start-ups and over 100 unicorns in our country,” he said.

“India’s economy is expected to grow at the rate of 7.5% this year. I’m glad that ours is one of the fastest growing economies among the largest economies of the world.” 

Modi then changed the focus to traditional medicine, appealing for more collaboration on this front as well. “India is one of the most economical countries in the world for medical and wellness tourism. We should enhance cooperation between SCO countries for traditional medicine,” he said. 

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Modi tweeted a summary of his remarks at the SCO shortly after. 

His first tweet said: “At the SCO Summit in Samarkand, emphasised on the constructive role SCO can play in the post-COVID era particularly in furthering economic recovery and strengthening supply chains. Highlighted India’s emphasis on people-centric growth which also gives importance to technology.”

He followed up with a second tweet: “At the SCO Summit, also emphasised on tackling the challenge of food security. In this context, also talked about India’s efforts to further popularise millets. SCO can play a big role in marking 2023 as International Year of Millets.