The Centre has established a Rs 5 crore fund to promote the country?s exports through Indian missions abroad. The focus of the fund is on boosting exports of India?s small and medium enterprises in new and emerging markets like Africa and Latin America. Termed the ?Challenge fund?, the money will be released as part of the Market Access Initiative (MAI) scheme of the commerce department.
The fund will be utilised only for projects relating to only on market development and market promotion activities, and export promotion of new items. The aim is to bring the spotlight on products of Micro, Small and Medium enterprises (MSME). Priority will be given for export promotion in regions and countries where India has a small bilateral trade profile, like Africa and Latin America, an official statement said. Duplication of projects already implemented under the MAI/ MDA scheme of the commerce ministry will be prohibited, it added. Export promotion projects will proposed by Indian Missions abroad and each individual project has been assigned a budget of Rs. 10 lakh.
Welcoming the move, A Sakthivel, President of Federation of Indian Export Organisations (FIEO), said ?the fund would now give Indian mission strength to implement their initiatives which earlier could not take off due to financial limitations.?
?Keeping in view the limited financial assistance available to exporters and various Export Promotion Bodies under MDA/MAI, this corpus may help in planning dedicated events jointly with the Indian mission to promote India?s exports,? he said.