Empowered Committee to work for MSME growth

NEW DELHI: The Prime Minister's Empowered Committee is focussing on MSMEs to work on a purposive plan to promote the growth of the MSME Sector.

"The Empowered Committee constituted by the Prime Minister is looking at removing bottlenecks and coming out with a purposive plan for the growth of the MSMEs," said Ashwani Kumar, minister of state for industry, Government of India, while speaking at 4th India Global Summit on MSMEs organized by the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII).

Complimenting CII on its effort in bringing MSMEs from across the world on a common platform, Ashwani Kumar said that it was important to deliberate on how to ensure convergence in the approach and commonalities of perspectives and have a "common minimum global institutional framework" with in which the MSMEs will grow. This would be a challenge for the policy makers he said.

While stressing the role that the MSME sector plays in generating employment and creating sustainable economic growth of a country, Kumar said that the case for finding ways for further strengthening MSMEs was compelling. "We do believe that without this sector our industrial sector will whither away. We don't have an option but to step up this sectors competitiveness. Time has come when utmost importance has to be given to these companies, " he added.

The Minister urged the MSMEs to be the best in the borderless world saying the MSMEs must restructure themselves to integrate with the global economy. He also added that the Indian Government was eager to learn from the experiences of the other countries to create an enabling environment for this sector.

Echoing the minister's sentiments on the importance of the MSME Sector to the sustainable growth of an economy, Anupam Dasgupta, secretary, Ministry of Small Scale Industries & Agro & Rural Industries, said "in this era of globalization the MSME sector has to become more dynamic in employment generation. It must compete with the best in the world and adopt the best global practices."

The Secretary defined the four major problem hampering the growth of the sector as access to credit, lack of technology, market accessibility and capacity building. Credit is almost universally a tough nut to break said Dasgupta. "These problems can be addressed by focusing on clusters especially from the point of view of providing collective guarantee. Propagation of advance technology in clusters could take place through common facility centres. Capacity building is the single most factor for the MSMEs," added the secretary.

The Secretary invited the delegates and Industry to provide inputs to the MSMED Act to enable the Indian Government to address the issues that had not been taken care of in the recently promulgated Act.

Richard Hancock, Chief Executive Officer (CEO), City of Ballarat, Australia said that the MSME Sector must be strengthened and made more sustainable. The City of Ballarat is the Partner City for this year's CII Summit. While emphasizing the importance of interaction with other countries Mr. Hancock said " we want to learn how other countries deal with the issues that the City of Ballarat's MSMEs are facing. MSMEs can do more for the development of the country and we want to develop an understanding of how we can do that."

"We wish to share our research and are looking at getting information that can add value to our efforts. We are looking at export friendliness of the MSMEs and how we could give them access to foreign markets," added Hancock.

Offering the benefits of their experience in developing clusters, Hancock said, "We have considerable experience in developing clusters. We are happy to share this information and welcome your contribution and inputs."

R Seshasayee, president, CII & managing director, Ashok Leyland, in his inaugural speech, emphasized the importance of the MSME Sector to every economy in the world.

The private enterprise in India had blossomed of which a lot had come from the MSME Sector, said Seshasayee. He defined this year as a landmark year for the MSME Sector in India, with the introduction of MSMED Act 2006.

Seshasayee added that while globalization had thrown open many opportunities for the MSMEs it had brought along the inevitable challenges. "While these opportunities have provided the environment for many Micro and Small enterprises to transition to the next level, with a rapidly changing global environment, the challenges for the MSME's have magnified manifold. To survive and to become globally competitive, the MSMEs have to become efficient, quality focused and innovative" he added.

Urging the MSMEs to think big, Ravi Poddar, Chairman, CII National SME Forum & Chairman, Ravi Auto Ltd said that aiming small was a crime. He said that the 12% growth of the manufacturing sector could happen only if the MSMEs became more competitive. "India must encourage the MSME Sector. Government's assistance is important and strategic collaborations will be of utmost important in this endevour", added Poddar.

Poddar also emphasized the importance of the growth of clusters for the overall growth of the industry. He further reiterated the importance of this sector in realizing the Indian Government's agenda of inclusive growth.

CIOL Bureau