The share of export of MSME-specified products in all India exports recovered in the financial year 2023-24 after three years of decline, according to the government data shared in the Rajya Sabha by Minister of State (MoS) in the MSME Ministry Shobha Karandlaje in a written reply to a question.
Citing information from the Data Dissemination Portal of the Directorate General of Commercial Intelligence and Statistics (DGCIS), the MoS noted that the percentage share of exports of MSME-related products in all India exports stood at 45.73 per cent in FY24.
The share had dropped from 49.73 per cent in FY20 to 49.35 per cent in FY21, 45.03 per cent in FY22 and 43.59 per cent in FY23. As of May 2024, the share was 45.79 per cent.
However, the value of MSME exports jumped to $190 billion in FY22 from $143.9 billion in FY21 and $154.8 billion in FY20. The data for FY23 and FY24 couldn’t be ascertained.
For the uninitiated, the former MSME Minister Nitin Gadkari in 2020 had set a target of increasing MSMEs’ share in exports to 60 per cent in five years.
In January this year, the government had announced an upcoming digital platform Trade Connect to link exporters including SMEs/startups and entrepreneurs with various stakeholders in international trade. The work on the platform will begin shortly, Commerce Minister Piyush Goyal had said in a meeting of the reconstituted Board of Trade.
In December last year, Goyal had launched an ‘E-Commerce Exports Handbook for MSMEs’ prepared by the Directorate General of Foreign Trade to help MSMEs leverage e-commerce platforms for the growth of exports. The handbook shares export strategies through e-commerce channels to enter and scale into global markets.
Meanwhile, India’s overall exports (including merchandise and services) stood at $776.68 billion in FY24, recording flat growth from $776.40 billion in FY23. In contrast, imports dropped to $854.80 billion in FY24 from $898.01 billion.