EAM S Jaishankar speaks at a business community event in Limassol, Cyprus on Friday.

India is aiming to become a major manufacturing hub and emerge as a $5 trillion economy by 2025, External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar said on Friday.

Speaking at a business community event in Limassol during his three-day visit to Cyprus, EAM Jaishankar said that recent advancements in infrastructure and technology had created a greater appetite for the world for investing in India. It had also increased India's own capabilities where trade and other economic activities are concerned, he added.

"I think it’s a fairly objective statement today to make that we are getting increasingly prominent in the global economy," he said.

He noted that India was receiving the highest ever FDI flows in its history. "Last year we received $81 billion as FDI. We have become home to one of the world's largest start-up ecosystems. We host close to a 100 unicorns, 40 of them (inaudible) just in 2021 alone. In fact we have the third largest number of Unicorns currently," he said.

At the same time, he pointed out, India's trade had expanded very substantially. "In year 2021-22, for the first time our exports crossed US $ 400 billion level. And this year we have set ourselves a target of US$ 470 billion and the export target for Europe is little in excess of US$ 90 billion," he said.

EAM Jaishankar remarked that a very different India was emerging with many more solutions to problems which have dogged us for a long time.

According to him, India implemented significant economic changes throughout the Covid-19 period, including the "Make in India" effort and the self-reliance-promoting "Atma Nirbhar Bharat" campaign.

"These were taken by the government in a much more focussed way and our intention, our goal is clearly to make India a major manufacturing hub and to emerge as a $5 trillion economy by 2025," he said.

He further highlighted the Product Linked Incentive (PLI) program's accomplishments, which include a specific range of industries, and said that the nation has pushed for investment in certain industries through incentives with the intention of growing output in India.