Easy access to finance, incentives to help MSMEs push exports: Connect2India

The government should take steps to improve access to credit and extend incentives to encourage micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs) push exports, world trade information provider Connect2India said Saturday.

Connect2India founder and CEO Pawan Gupta said that MSMEs hold huge potential to increase the country's exports.

He said these enterprises can help India achieve USD 2 trillion global trade by 2025.

One of the key pre-requisites for a first time MSME exporter looking to export globally is easy access to trade finance, and more specifically the pre-shipment finance, he said.

"The easy access to trade finance would allow MSMEs, including agro producers to export directly without dependency on merchant exporters," he said in a statement.

Gupta also suggested for providing interest subsidy on post and pre-shipment export to all MSMEs.

"Seminars needs to be conducted to increase the level of awareness about ECGC schemes, awareness about payment risk can be revealed by ECGC and premium rates must be reduced further to cover more MSME customers," Gupta said.

Currently the sector accounts for about 40 per cent in the country's total exports, which grew by 9 per cent to USD 331 billion in 2018-19.

He said that India is home to over 65 million MSMEs, but lack of credible platform to identify and tap global opportunities hinders the sector.

"Only a fraction of them (less than 1 per cent) enter overseas markets for export/import, that too with a greater degree of risk," he added.

Connect2India offers global trade intelligence, resources and tools on its integrated trade platform.