India tackled coronavirus 'much better' than world thought: Piyush Goyal

India has been able to tackle the coronavirus pandemic much better than the world had thought it would do, said Commerce and Industry Minister Piyush Goyal on Tuesday.

"India has been able to actually face the pandemic much better than other parts of the world had thought India would be able to. There are a lot of concerns that used to be on how India will handle this given the large population the population, and lack of adequate facilities, but on one call of the Prime Minister [Narendra Modi], the entire nation went into lockdown," Goyal said at the U.S.-India Business Council's India Ideas Summit, being conducted virtually.

Goyal highlighted that New Delhi has become self-sufficient in personal protective equipment and hand stizers. He added that the country will soon start exporting ventilators.

"We broke the Coronavirus transmission chain, gave ourselves time to prepare to meet this challenge so that we are self-sufficient in personal protective equipment, masks and hand stizers. From only four laboratories conducting this test, we now have 1,000 from 2,500 a day, we now do 400,000 a day, tests. We are self-sufficient in ventilators and we will shortly start exporting ventilators," the minister said.

The minister said that he believes that India has done a very good balancing act by saving lives and the economy at the same time.

"So, the country as a whole has rallied behind Prime Minister Modi to ensure that we protect lives so that we live another day for our life. We studied earlier pandemics and Prime Minister Modi did a lot of research on this. We realized that those countries that were focused on saving lives in the near medium-term and long run, did well in the economy, and those who focus only on the economy, collapsed and I think India played a very good balancing act," he said.

( With inputs from ANI )