Finance minister P Chidambaram will hold discussions on Wednesday with leaders of industry associations to draw up an action plan to achieve 12% growth in the manufacturing sector.

After presenting this years Budget, the finance minister had said that he was willing to resolve various issues that were hampering the growth of this sector.

Chidambaram had sought the views of CII, Ficci, Assocham and Phdcci. The associations have submitted their views and the minister will hold further discussions on the same.

Minister of state for finance (revenue) SS Planimanickam and MoS for finance Pawan Kumar Bansal are also likely to participate in the meeting. The meeting was earlier scheduled to be held on May 1, 2006.

The growth target of 12% in manufacturing is expected to create about 1.6 to 2.9 million direct jobs annually with two to three times indirect jobs.

With a 12% annual growth, the contribution of the manufacturing sector to the GDP is expected to reach 23% by 2015.

In 2005-06, the manufacturing output represented a growth of 9% while the overall GDP grew 8.4%. In contrast, some service sectors like construction (12.1%) and trade, transport, hotels and communication (11.5%) grew faster.