Emphasising how this is the time for AatmaNirbhar Bharat to make Indian economy strong and create more employment potential, Union Minister for Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises, Nitin Gadkari said that we need to consciously look at increasing our exports.
Speaking at the 17th Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) Global SME Business Summit on Wednesday, the minister said that MSMEs present a huge potential for export and can make the vision of Prime Minister Narendra Modi a reality. “MSMEs constitute a vital part of the economic structure of India. They contribute 30% to GDP and 48% to exports and have created 11 cr jobs. The target is to create 5 crore more jobs in the next 5 years. So we need to accelerate our economy,” he stated.
Stating how the GDP contribution from rural, tribal and 115 aspirant districts is negligible, Gadkari said that this is the time for MSME ministry and the industry to concentrate more on such districts.
Giving the example of the Village Industry, the minister said that the turnover of the Village Industry is currently Rs 80,000 crore. “Our conviction is to make it Rs 5 lakh crore in the next 2 years,” he said.
At the summit, ecommerce major Amazon and CII signed an MoU to bring digital transformation for MSMEs in 10 states across India at the 17th Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) Global SME Business Summit on Wednesday. Amazon and CII will align with the Ministry of MSME to create new opportunities for MSMEs by training, skilling and helping grow their business through ecommerce.
“The most important target for the ministry is to make the Indian economy strong. The need of the hour is to increase exports and reduce imports,” Gadkari said while speaking at the virtual summit.
Gadkari added that MSMEs have the potential to contribute 50% to GDP and 60% of the export market. He lauded the efforts of Amazon in enabling the growth of the sector in exports. “Amazon’s role is very important. It is an opportunity for all of us to take MSMEs to international markets – our cost is very less and the product quality is very good. I appreciate the Rs 70,000 crore export opportunity by Amazon to Indian MSMEs. But my request is to add atleast Rs 2 lakh crore export of MSMEs to the global market. Our products will be a choice of global economy and the people. I am confident of it,” he reiterated.
CII also announced a strategic MoU with Mastercard and National Institute for Micro, Small & Medium Enterprises (ni-msme) to launch the Digital Saksham Initiative, a programme designed to strengthen the competitiveness of MSMEs through digital know-how and acceptance.
This collaboration aims to educate and train micro and small business owners and entrepreneurs enabling them to integrate into the digital economy and access credit, expand their market access, diversify their customer base, digitize their financial operations and solidify their supply chain.
“The project Digital Saksham by CII, Mastercard and ni-msme entails a scale of reaching out to more than 3 lakh MSMEs in 25 cities including rural and peri-urban clusters. This will help drive systemic transformation and further accelerate achievements towards meeting our goals and ensure financial inclusion,” the minister added.
The implementation of the project is proposed from January 2021 and execution of training among the MSMEs from June 2021.
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