Amazon on Monday said the firm’s Global Selling Programme has helped Indian small businesses reach cumulative exports worth over $2 billion. While sellers registered with the programme — launched in 2015, achieved exports worth $1billion in three years, the next $1billion was reached in less than 18 months, said Amit Agarwal, senior VP and country head at Amazon India that enables more than 60,000 sellers to export their products globally.

In January, founder & CEO Jeff Bezos had said Amazon will export $10 billion worth of ‘Make in India’ goods by 2025. Bezos, who was on his visit to India, committed investment of an additional $1billion in the country, bulk of which will be used to digitise small and medium businesses.

Sellers, many of whom come from smaller pockets of the country, like Faridabad, Bilaspur and Roorkee, have benefitted from the programme, getting access to 15 international markets, said Agarwal. “We will continue to empower Indian MSMEs at Amazon. We remain committed to our pledge to digitise 10 million MSMEs, enable 1 million incremental jobs,” Agarwal said.

‘Made in India’ products across categories like health and hygiene, nutritional supplements and home essentials witnessed a steep demand in markets like the US, Canada, Europe, Mexico, Japan and Australia, Amazon said.

Indian exporters saw a 76% and 55% year-on-year increase in total units sold during the 2019 Black Friday and Cyber Monday events, respectively.

The announcement by Amazon comes less than a week after JioMart, the latest entrant in the domestic e-commerce space said it will expand its offerings to cover more categories including electronics and fashion in the coming days. JioMart is wooing the country’s small merchants to fuel its reach among customers. Small and medium traders have often launched several protests against Amazon and Flipkart for hurting brick-and-mortar businesses through deep discounts.

Speaking at the event, MSME minister Nitin Gadkari sought Amazon’s cooperation to aid the micro industries by possibly helping them design their products in accordance with the need of the global markets.

Gadkari said the government has identified 115 aspirational districts which have the economic potential but requires hand-holding to get incorporated in the mainstream. Pitching for ‘AtmaNirbar Bharat’, the minister said his department will be more than willing to help Amazon replace the goods it imports into India with local variants.