Lucknow/UNI: Union Minister of State for Commerce and Industry Anupriya Patel on Sunday praised the efforts of Uttar Pradesh in achieving the national target of reducing logistics cost.

The Union Minister said that "The central and state governments are working as one unit. According to Prime Minister Narendra Modi's vision, the UP government's new warehousing and logistics policy will encourage the private sector. The private sector should take full advantage of this opportunity."

Speaking at a session titled 'Uttar Pradesh - the emerging warehousing and logistic hub of India' on the third day of the Global Investors Summit, the Union Minister said that there is a target of reducing the logistics cost of the country to 8 per cent by 2030 from 14 per cent at present.

She said that as the world's 5th largest economy, India aspires to be among the top ten in the Logistics Performance Index by 2030. "We will achieve our goal if the government of UP, the country's largest state, continues to improve its warehousing and logistics infrastructure," she said.

Union Minister of State for Commerce and Industry Som Prakash also presented his views in the special session.

Discussing the challenges in the logistics sector, he said that "reducing the logistics cost is very important for the industry. Policy efforts are being made for this. The logistics cost to GDP ratio is much lower in the US, South Korea, Singapore, and some European countries. The government aims to ensure that logistics issues are minimized, exports increase manifold, small-scale industries flourish, and the people who work there get more profit."

Appreciating the new logistics policy of the UP government, Prakash said that this policy will help in making this sector an integrated, cost-efficient, flexible, and sustainable logistics ecosystem in the country by optimizing regulations and separating supply-side bottlenecks.

In addition to covering all the basics of the field, he further praised the policies of the Yogi government and stated that there was a time when people used to go from UP to Punjab for employment, but today, in 5 to 6 years of the Yogi government things have changed so much that people from other states come to see the wonderful changes in UP.