The President of India Pranab Mukherjee has said that India has initiated the ‘Make in India' program and it is the collaboration between industry and academia which will catalyze our national efforts to make this program a success. The President was speaking at the CII-IIEST Conference on the theme of "Enabling Make in India through Industry Academia Innovation Platform" in Kolkata, West Bengal recently.

Speaking on the occasion, the President said that India's external sector has remained steady with current account deficit improving to 1.1 percent of GDP in 2015-16 from 1.3 percent in the previous year. The challenges in global economic conditions notwithstanding, India has registered a growth rate of 7.3 percent in the calendar year 2015. The industrial sector has posted a growth of 7.4 percent in the last financial year, with the manufacturing sector growth returning even better figures of 9.3 percent.

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