Commerce minister urges Indian investors to support start-ups in BIMSTEC region

Commerce and industry minister Piyush Goyal on Friday called upon Indian investors to mentor and support start-ups within the BIMSTEC region.
BIMSTEC or The Bay of Bengal Initiative for Multi-Sectoral Technical and Economic Cooperation is a grouping of seven countries in South Asia and South-East Asia. He was speaking at the Prarambh Start-up India International Summit.

“I have been making an earnest appeal on several occasions to try and encourage Indian capital to expand their horizon to support start-ups in India particularly at an early stage. Today, I would like to encourage Indian capital and Indian investors to look at the BIMSTEC region to look at our neighbours and work towards greater engagement both through investments, mentoring and support to the larger ecosystem within the BIMSTEC region so that we can demonstrate to the world our joint and collective efforts and commitment to make the start-ups the pillar on which future economic development will rest and prosper,” he said.

Speaking at the same event minister of state (MOS) for commerce and industry and minister of civil aviation, Hardeep Singh Puri said that India is keen on supporting start-ups operating in the domain of drones. The country has over 130 such start-ups. “Drones are being used today to monitor projects on a real-time basis. They are used not only for surveillance but also for delivering supplies during disaster management, delivery of medicines.”

Puri said Indian start-ups had come up with winning solutions during the pandemic while also highlighting the “mammoth funding” attracted by the ed-tech space.