Piyush Goyal launches the India-SCO Startup Forum, says engaging with member nations will help Indian startups

Sharing best practices, knowledge and engaging investors from the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation member nations will help strengthen startup ecosystem, Commerce and Industry Minister Piyush Goyal said on Tuesday. Launching the India-SCO Startup Forum, he said creativity, innovation and disruption will be the new mandate in the emerging future.

The minister said the new unique concepts that startups come up with will get a much larger engagement through this forum.

"Sharing our best practices, knowledge, engaging corporates and investors from all the member nations, monetising and mobilising capital, setting up incubators, providing exposure and scale with market access will certainly help the worthy ideas of our startups' innovations," Goyal said.

SCO (Shanghai Cooperation Organisation) members are China, India, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Pakistan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan.

He added that this forum is an opportunity for all the member nations to share and learn from their experiences.

Speaking at the event, Secretary in the Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade (DPIIT) Guruprasad Mohapatra said that since the launch of the startup India initiative in 2016, over 35,500 startups are recognised by the government, and they are in 590 districts of 28 states and 8 UTs.

He said the forum will lay the foundation for multinational cooperations and engagement among the member states to develop and strengthen their startup ecosystem collectively.

The forum would help in empowering the local startup ecosystem, and enable access to investors and corporates in startups.

The forum was jointly launched by industry body CII and DPIIT. RR BAL