MUMBAI: Chief minister Devendra Fadnavis today said for Maharashtra to become a USD 1-trillion economy by 2025 it needs to grow at a 15.4 per cent per annum, and focus more on the services sector.
At the current growth rate of 9.4 per cent, the state will achieve this target by 2029, thus, there is a need to accelerate the pace of growth to 15.3 per cent, he said.
"We want to make the state a trillion-dollar economy by 2025 and for that we require a growth rate of 15.4 per cent," Fadnavis said on the second day of the Maharashtra global investor summit here.
According to the minister, to achieve this growth, the agriculture sector should grow at 5.5 per cent, industries at 12.3 per cent and the services sector at 15.5 per cent.
Fadnavis said the agriculture and industry sectors at present are showing positive growth, but some more acceleration is required in the services sector.
He estimated that by 2018 the share of agriculture sector in the state's economy will be 11 per cent, while that of the industry and the services sectors would be at 30 per cent and 59 per cent, respectively.
"We need to increase this share further. By 2025, the share of the services sector has to grow to 67 per cent, industries to 27 per cent and agriculture to 6 per cent," the minister said.
Explaining why the state is aiming for a low agriculture share, he said, "it is because the size of GSDP is expanding and at that phase even a 6 per cent share we will have our production doubled from the present level. I think we have to shift towards a service-oriented economy where 67 per cent of the economy will come from services."
Noting that though the share of agriculture to the gross state domestic product is only 11 per cent now, it employs 50 per cent of the people, the chief minister said and highlighted that the sector is unable to absorb more workforce and it is important to skill the labour so that they can work in industries or services.
Fadnavis pointed out that the productivity of manufacturing is seven times of agriculture, while that of services is nine times of agriculture.
For accelerating the overall economic growth to 15.4 per cent, his government has identified areas of employment- led growth in the digital economy, ease of doing business, public investment in infrastructure led growth and demand led growth in corridors to connect value-added geographies in the state.
