MSME Min pitches for adoption of innovative practices by SMEs

The Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSME) Ministry today asked such units, especially start ups, to adopt innovative technologies in their production to make them globally competitive.

"We have been discussing the issue of innovation and how to trigger innovation for start ups and existing ones," MSME Secretary Madhav Lal said at a CII event here.

He said the ministry has found that there are small initiatives which have been taken by SIDBI and similar organisations in the Department of Biotechnology and Department of Science and Technology, but they are very dispersed.

The market share of MSMEs has been declining domestically and in the global market, on the other hand countries such as China have been increasing their share consistently.

The MSME sector has been witnessing a slow growth phase with its share of exports falling from 40% to 36% of late.

Lal said, therefore, it is important to work within certain frameworks and policies. There is a mechanism which can be created and the MSME Ministry is working on those mechanisms.

"We can work minus the frameworks, but I think scales can be achieved only if there are well thought out frameworks," he said.

The MSME sector contributes over 8% to the country's Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and accounts for 45% of the manufacturing sector.

There are around 3.6 crore such enterprises, employing over 8 crore people.