NEW DELHI: India has the means and the potential to become a global hub for services with competitive pricing, and become a major source of job creation for millions of youth in the country, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley said.

"This is our area of core strength. We have the abilities to provide services cheaper," the finance minister said at a two-day exposition on services at the sprawling Pragati Maidan fair ground in the national capital.

"Services are more easily India`s territory and we cannot afford to lose our advantage in the services arena. We have the necessary pre-requisites for building our advantage in services -- a large and growing population, a reservoir of rich and varied human resources and a population which demands quality services," Jaitley said.

"While in other major sectors -- agriculture, manufacturing and mining -- there are a number of regulatory and other challenges that come in the way of unleashing our latent potential," he added.

According to him, the above situation is not applicable for services where government intervention is minimal.

Jaitley said education, health care and IT had the potential to generate a huge number of jobs. "These are the areas to address," he added, calling for measures from both the Centre and state governments.

The minister, however, mentioned the major factor coming in the way of realising the full potential in services is the narrow mindset which envisions a conspiracy in every step towards progress.

"Hence, the response is to either delay or stop any progressive move. No wonder, we fall behind in the world`s competitive battles. This mindset has to be put behind and our aim should be to be a creator rather than the recipient of services," he said.

"It needs to be realised that sectoral limits on FDI no longer make sense in an era when prohibitions can be breached by technology," he added.

Earlier, Commerce Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said India was a global leader in providing services and it must be realised to the full potential.

The two-day event was opened by Prime Minister Narendra Modi. "Human resource is India`s biggest power," Modi said in his inaugural address at the Global Exhibition on Services (GES) here, organised by the Confederation of Indian Industry.

"Earlier, there was brain drain, now there is the `yatra` from brain drain to brain gain," he said.

"We must not worry about some people going abroad in search of work as the country has lots of young talent. In the coming days, India is going to get younger. We need to focus on this aspect while thinking about our development journey," the prime minister said.

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