ICICI Prudential Mutual Fund has today announced the launch of 'Manufacture in India Fund', an open-ended equity scheme with an objective to invest in companies, which are engaged in manufacturing theme.

The scheme aims to capture the increasing contribution of share of manufacturing in India's GDP, which is currently at 18%, that is higher than the narrow range of 14-16% seen over the last 4 decades.

Anish Tawakley and Mittul Kalawadia will co-manage this scheme.

Explaining the rationale behind the launch of the scheme, Nimesh Shah, MD & CEO, ICICI Prudential Asset Management Company said, "We believe India is poised to emerge as a significant manufacturing hub in order to cater to rising domestic demand. Positive policy announcements by the government and well-designed development programs in various sectors of manufacturing, is likely to lead to further growth in coming years. This scheme will broadly look at the manufacturing theme from three aspects namely exports oriented manufacturing, domestic consumption and domestic capex manufacturing."  

The company said that the key growth drivers of manufacturing sector in India include domestic availability of raw materials at competitive prices, strong demand growth in consumer industry, competitive cost of manufacturing, increasing investment in research & development and an eco-system to support industry and innovation.