Nitin Gadkari Plans to Take Indian MSMEs Global Through E-commerce The union minister has proposed to constitute an Amazon-like platform for small & medium enterprises
By Aastha Singal •
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The Indian Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs), currently contributing 29 per cent to the nation's Gross Domestic Product (GDP) hold the potential to take the figure up to 50 per cent in the next 5 years and Union Minister, Nitin Gadkari has a plan in place to ensure the target is met.
With much dialogue around e-commerce already going on, Indian MSMEs might be the next in line to hitch the stakes by entering the space. The Indian government is reportedly considering a proposal to set up an e-commerce platform for MSMEs to be marketed across the world.
Targeting the World
Addressing the International SME Convention on June 27th, the Minister of MSMEs hinted that people from across the world should be able to reach the micro and small entrepreneurs of the country through the platform. "The ministry has already begun working in this direction," he shared.
"For the marketing purpose, I have already suggested to my department that we need a platform like Alibaba or Amazon where MSMEs are there and anyone in the world can access that and see what products they are offering," Gadkari provided.
The Plan
Gadkari believes that Prime Minister, Narendra Modi's vision of India becoming a $5 trillion economy can only be fulfilled if MSMEs, often touted as the backbone of the nation's economy, are helped out of the bottlenecks they currently battle, including the lack of credit, infrastructure and especially, technical advancements.
"We are a rich country, but a poor population. Skilled manpower, the appropriate policy will help us achieve the goal of $5 trillion economy," he said. The employment within the MSME sector can be extended to 15 crores from around 11 crores at present.
The Push
Indian MSMEs have been witnessing the growth push from all directions. While the government is taking its own measures to take them global, the startups have been making efforts to promote the industry. GlobalLinker, a unique SME enablement ecosystem has tied up with Awfis to allow small business owners to work from anywhere without experiencing loss in productivity.
Recently, Flipkart also decided to revamp its "Growth Capital' seller financing program. This will allow over one lakh MSME sellers on the platform to avail credit at competitive interest rates from non-banking financial companies (NBFC) and banks.
