No complaints on poor inter-ministerial coordination hurting MSME exports: MSME ministry

Trade, import and export for MSMEs: The MSME sector’s share in India's annual merchandise exports had dropped even as the latter hit a record high level in FY22.

Written by Sandeep Soni

February 13, 2023 18:11 IST

msme exports, small business exports, inter ministerial coordination, cross border trade, logistics, mse exports, bhanu pratap singh verma, budget session, parliament

The share of MSME exports in the country’s total exports had further dropped to 42.67 per cent as of August 2022.

Trade, import and export for MSMEs: In response to a question in the Parliament on whether any lack of coordination between ministries is hurting exports by MSMEs, minister of state for MSMEs Bhanu Pratap Singh Verma said the MSME ministry has not received complaints pertaining to poor inter-ministerial coordination hampering MSME exports. “The ministry had launched grievance redressal mechanism Champions portal on June 1, 2020 to address inter-ministerial issues. Nodal officers of various ministries, banks, central public sector units and state governments are also on-boarded on the portal for resolution of grievances related to them,” Verma said in his reply.

Importantly, the MSME sector’s share in India’s annual merchandise exports had dropped even as the latter hit a record high level in FY22. MSME exports’ share had dipped to 45.04 per cent in FY22 in comparison to 49.75 per cent during FY20 and 49.35 per cent during FY21 while India’s exports jumped 34.63 per cent from $313.3 billion in FY20 and 44.5 per cent from $291.8 billion in FY21 to record $421.8 billion in FY22. The data was shared by Verma in a written reply to a question in the Rajya Sabha in July last year.

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The share of MSME exports in the country’s total exports had further dropped to 42.67 per cent as of August 2022, Verma had noted citing data from the Directorate General of Commercial Intelligence & Statistics.

Meanwhile, Verma highlighted measures taken by the government to improve inter-ministerial coordination viz., Udyam portal for MSME registration, delayed payments monitoring portal MSME Samadhaan, and public procurement monitoring portal MSME Sambandh. Nonetheless, MSME exports had surged 21.8 per cent from $155.9 billion during FY20 and 31.9 per cent from $143.9 billion during FY21 to $190 billion during FY22.

According to the government data, the US ($54.7 billion), UAE ($13.4 billion), Hong Kong ($9.93 billion), the UK ($7.54 billion), Germany ($7.19 billion), China ($5.16 billion), Belgium ($4.73 billion) France ($4.20 billion), the Netherlands ($4.24 billion), and Italy ($3.84 billion) were the top export markets for MSMEs in FY22.

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Last year, India had also signed two ambitious deals – a Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement (CEPA) with one of its top export destinations the UAE and an Economic Cooperation and Trade Agreement (ECTA) with Australia to support MSMEs and other businesses. There are other similar deals in the pipeline with other markets such as the UK, the European Union, Canada, Israel and the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) – a political and economic alliance of six Middle Eastern countries viz., Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Bahrain, Oman, Qatar, and the UAE.