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INDUSTRY

ciation with the Economic Diplomacy
& States Division of the Ministry of Ex-
ternal Affairs and the India SME Forum
organized the second International SME
Convention.
As many as1385 entrepreneurs from
India and 175 from 44 countries attended
the convention. Ambassadors from 16
countries including, European, African
and Latin American Countries along
with their respective commercial sec-
tions presented trade opportunities at
the Convention.
About 198 pre-arranged B2B meetings
were conducted, 42 letters of intent were
filed for possible future collaborations.
729 B2B trade connect forms were filed
by Indian entrepreneurs. A total of 3015

for bringing all MSME service providers rameters are being simplified to on-
on one platform. board more than one million MSMEs on Under Prime Minister’s
Scheme under implementation are in ZED journey. All Industry Associations Employment Generation
267 Clusters of MSMEs throughout the and technical institutions are being on
country through Quality Council of India boarded for wider access to the scheme. Programme, 65,312 new
(QCI) and National Productivity Council More than 60 new IP Facilitation Centres micro enterprises have
(NPC). State Governments, Industry As- set up in different parts of the country to
sociations have also been onboarded to have one IP lawyer to assist MSMEs to been set up and 5,22,496
take the scheme to more MSME clusters. apply for and register their trademarks
and patents. employment opportunities
ncubation centres have been ap- Over 135 crores have been sanc- generated and a margin
proved for more than 200 Technical tioned under Entrepreneurship and Skill
I Institutions, Industry Associations, Development Programme (ESDP) for money subsidy
Social Enterprises. Innovative ideas hav- organizing different skill development worth 1929.83 crores
ing business proposals are being invited programmes throughout the country
from them for funding support under through State Governments, Industry have been utilised
the scheme. Seed capital up to Rs. 1 crore Associations, Social Enterprises and Gov-
have been provided to start up entrepre- ernment Corporations. A total of about
neurs under the scheme. 3000 programmes have been conducted requests for International B2B matching
Design scheme opened for different or sanctioned for this year. were received, for which an Internation-
technical institutions under Ministry The RBI Expert Committee under U. al SME Gateway is being planned.
of Human Resource Development, In- K. Sinha on Micro, Small and Medium An MOU was signed between a Span-
dustry Associations, Social Enterprises, Enterprises has made 37 major recom- ish company MCU Coatings and Indian
Self Help Groups working on providing mendations. The concerned Ministries, company HiTech Engineers for tech-
design support to MSME entrepreneurs Departments, Organizations and States nology transfer and setting up a plant in
including rural and art based enterpris- have been asked by the Ministry to take Puducherry with joint investment of US
es. More than 80 new Design centres follow up action on the actionable points $10 million. With all this it seems certain
opened at different locations in addition relevant to them. that micro, small and medium enter-
to 4 already being run though National To review implementation status of prises would play a key role in attaining
Institute of Design (NID). All MSMEs and the recommendations of the Committee, the five trillion-economy targets by 2024.
Students are being requested to submit a meeting of Committee of Secretaries The role played by this sector would be
their design projects for funding under (CoS) under the chairmanship of Cabinet significant because majority of other
the scheme. Secretary was held on October 31, 2019. sectors are currently showing negative
About 23070 MSMEs have been reg- How much significance the MSME sec- growth.
istered under Zero Defect Effect (ZED) tor enjoys could be understood from the
scheme since inception. The ZED pa- fact that the Ministry of MSME in asso- LETTERS@TEHELKA.COM

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