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President's Message
It is a matter of great pride that when the richest nations are struggling to get supplies of Covid vaccine, India has as the largest stockpile of the Covid vaccines under its belt. Not only is India the biggest manufacturer of vaccines in general, but what is of significance is one manufacturer has licence to produce Oxford vaccine and the other has developed it completely in house. There are two more vaccines in the fray for india trials of which are in final stages. If the mass vaccination is indeed carried out as planned: 300 mn people in next months, it would be biggest such exercise in the world. By sharing its prowess in vaccines India stands to gain diplomatically by being generous with neighbours and other fellow developing countries. It will have positive economic fall out as well both domestically and internationally. I wish readers of FISME Factor a very happy new year 2021.
"
To strengthen domestic manufacturing in select product categories and contain imports, FISME began its campaign with consultations in Panipat with acrylic/ polyester blanket manufacturer.
Focusing on 'Atmanirbhar Bharat', FISME has initiated a program with SIDBI and Centre for WTO Studies (IIFT, New Delhi) for ‘Creating a Roadmap for Substituting Chinese Imports by Building Manufacturing Capability in 15 Identified MSME Clusters’.
Acrylic/ polyester Blanket is one of the items chosen for the study and intervention. The study's overall objective is to identify what would it take to manufacture blankets in India and out-compete Chinese imports. Following the study, SIDBI along with FSME and other institutions will endeavour to provide the financial, technical and marketing support needed by the cluster.
The pandemic and everything related to it caught many business owners by surprise and, even worse, caused some businesses to fold. Yelp reported that permanent business closures have reached 97,966, representing 60% of closed businesses that won’t be reopening. Imagine investing so much into an entity, and because of some virus, things start to slow down, till they eventually go under.
Exactly a year after the Covid-19 infection began its ambush, the world is witnessing a mass-vaccination drive against the pandemic. And therefore, if pessimism was associated with 2020, optimism is the word for 2021.
The market crash in March 2020 resulted in stocks being available at throwaway prices, opening up attractive investment opportunities. Moreover, as the Reserve Bank of India kept interest rates low during the year, flood gates of liquidity were thrown open. The result? Both, the Sensex and the Nifty50 indices, are up nearly 80 per cent from March 2020 low.
The wholesale price-based inflation fell to 1.22 per cent in December on easing food prices, as per government data released on Thursday.
The inflation based on Wholesale Price Index (WPI) was 1.55 per cent in November 2020, and 2.76 per cent in December 2019 while the rate of inflation based on WPI Food Index decreased from 4.27 per cent in November 2020, to 0.92 per cent in December 2020. "The food index consisting of food articles from primary articles group and food product from manufactured products group has decreased from 158.9 in November 2020 to 154.4 in December 2020," said an official statement on Thursday.
Reserve Bank of India (RBI) Governor Shaktikanta Das headed Sub-Committee of the Financial Stability and Development Council (FSDC) has reviewed the major developments in the global and domestic economy as well as financial markets that impact financial stability.
The meeting of the Sub-Committee of the Financial Stability and Development Council (FSDC) was attended by various regulators, including SEBI and IRDAI.
Asset quality of Non-Banking Financial Companies (NBFCs) is expected to deteriorate further due to business disruptions caused by the Covid-19 pandemic, especially in the industry sector, one of the major recipients of NBFC credit, according to the latest financial stability report (FSR) by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI).
According to the report, NBFCs saw a decline in growth in 2019-20, largely due to isolated credit events in a few large NBFCs, challenges in accessing funds and the overall economic slowdown, with the pandemic’s impact adding to the stress in the later period. During 2019-20, credit extended by NBFCs grew by 4.4 per cent as compared with 22 per cent in 2018- 19.
Private lender ICICI Bank has tied up with Fintech Niyo to issue prepaid cards to workers of Micro, Small & Medium Enterprises (MSMEs).
With this, the MSMEs will now be able to avail ‘ICICI Bank Niyo Bharat Payroll Card’ powered by Visa, for their blue-collar workers, who are mostly unbanked. MSMEs will now be able to send the salaries of their workers on the card, which the workers will use as per their need in a seamless manner. The ‘ICICI Bank Niyo Bharat Payroll Card’ allows an individual to receive funds upto Rs. 1 lakh into the card account.
Online procurement of goods on Government e-Marketplace (GeM) by defence services and organisations under the Ministry of Defence grew 72 per cent by the end of December FY21 from around the year-ago period, said a senior official.
Defence Secretary Ajay Kumar took to the microblogging site twitter on New Year's day and said, “Defence Services & organizations are adopting Government e-Marketplace in their procurements rapidly. 72 per cent growth in 2020-21 over 2019-20.”
From goods procured worth Rs 1,406 crore as of November 30, 2019, the order value grew to Rs 2,425 crore, as per data shared by Kumar. The overall procurement by defence organisations and departments for FY20 stood at Rs 2,810 crore.
After examining the difficulties faced by Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs) while applying for Authorised Economic Operator (AEO) accreditation, the Central Board of Indirect Taxation & Customs (CBIC) has eased the custom compliance and security requirements involved in the process.
“The relaxation has been carried out to ensure that the MSMEs are facilitated through rationalized compliance requirements and minimum but effective security requirements,” said a circular dated December 15th which was issued by CBIC’s Directorate of International Customs (DIC).
Aiming to provide technical expertise in developing renewable energy projects, Indian Renewable Energy Development Agency Ltd. (IREDA), under administrative control of Ministry of New & Renewable Energy (MNRE) signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with NHPC Ltd., the PSU under Ministry of Power on Friday.
According to MoU, IREDA will undertake Techno-Financial due diligence of Renewable energy and Energy Efficiency & conservation projects for NHPC. IREDA will assist NHPC in developing an action plan to create and acquire Renewable Energy projects for the next 5 years.
West Bengal (WB) has topped among all the states in the country in the Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSME) sector with more than 135.52 lakh people getting employed in at least 88.67 lakh units in the state.
All India Trinamool Congress on Thursday took to the micro-blogging site twitter and said ''Under the guidance of Hon'ble CM @MamataOfficial, WB has emerged as one of the TOP performers in the MSME Sector, with 88L+ MSME units & employing 135L+ people!.''
In a bid to enhance Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSME), the Federation of Karnataka Chamber of Commerce and Industries (FKCCI) has urged the government to temporarily halt the "Inspector Raj and notification Raj".
FKCCI in its pre-Budget memorandum to Union Finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Tuesday said that "Inspector Raj and notification Raj" is a deterrent to the revival of the industries and halting it for the time being would enhance the ease of doing business.
Haryana State Industrial and Infrastructure Development Corporation (HSIIDC) will e-auction industrial plots of sizes 450, 1012.50, 1800, 2500, 3645, 4500, 7695, 8505, 8910, 9720, 10125 & 21250 Sq.
According to advertisements by the HSIIDC, 1 acre which is 4050 Sq metres is priced at Rs. 15,540/- per Sq. meters and for Hospital sites such as 4657.50 Sq. is priced at Rs 5.43 crores in prime locations of Industrial Model Township, Faridabad. For industrial plots the registration date has already started from January 1st and will remain till January 3oth while the auction for the same will start on February 15th.
Manipur has become eligible to mobilise additional financial resources of Rs.75 crore through Open Market Borrowings. Permission for the same was issued by the Department of Expenditure on 11th January, 2021.
State has become the 4th in the country to successfully undertake “Urban Local Bodies (ULB)” reforms stipulated by the Department of Expenditure, Ministry of Finance in its letter to the States dated 17th May, 2020.
The Union Cabinet has given its approval to the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) on Scientific and Technical Cooperation between National Centre of Meteorology (NCM), United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Ministry of Earth Sciences (MoES) India, according to an official statement.
The MoU provides for sharing of knowledge, data and operational products for meteorological, seismological and oceanic services, such as Radar, Satellite, Tide gauges, seismic and Meteorological stations. Organization of bilateral scientific and technical seminars/ workshops/ conferences and training courses on problems related to the fields of cooperation mentioned in the MoU and of interest to both countries.
Union Minister of Petroleum and Natural Gas & Steel Dharmendra Pradhan, interacted with H.E Mr. L. Oyun-Erdene, MP, Minister and Chief Cabinet Secretary of Mongolia and Co-Chair of the India-Mongolia Joint Committee on Cooperation and H.E G. Yondon, Minister of Mines and Heavy Industry through video conference on Friday.
Bilateral cooperation in hydrocarbons and steel sectors were comprehensively reviewed in the meetings. Pradhan conveyed deep appreciation to H.E Oyun-Erdene and H.E Yondon for their support in facilitating approvals for expeditious implementation of the green field Mongol Refinery Project, built under a Line of Credit from Government of India.
How do you see the growth prospects for exports in Jan-Mar quarter?
According to the FISME factor, 50% of MSMEs think that there will be high growth prospects for exports in Jan-Mar quarter while 50% think of moderate growth prospects.
Surviving & succeeding in times of continuous chaos
When I woke up to the news of battle lines being drawn between two of the world’s richest men over India’s lucrative retail market, I couldn’t help but wonder what this may mean for the people who are part of the companies they are fighting over and for the leaders of those organisations. One day, there is news that a billionaire retail giant is selling part of his business to a conglomerate owned by another billionaire giant.
4 Investment Tips Every Entrepreneur Must Consider In 2021
Many resolutions made at the start of the new year will focus on personal finance and, in particular, how to make it grow. 2021 offers the chance to overcome the uncertainty of 2020. Entrepreneur Mickael Daussy, founder of the trading tool MKD FX, believes that knowing how best to invest the money you have will always be the surest way to help it grow. Here are four tips that entrepreneurs should consider in 2021, as per Daussy.
5 Powerful Digital Marketing Hacks to Increase Sales
Digital marketing is the most effective way to reach your target audience, drive targeted traffic to your website, generate quality leads, and ultimately, close sales.
No matter how small or large your business is, having a deep understanding of what happens when you implement your digital marketing strategy is critical to making better decisions that will yield positive results. As such, having the right tools, processes, and people in place will only help elevate your efforts to meet your other business objectives.
Anti-Dumping Duty on Viscose Staple Fibre (VSF) driving user industries to closure; NCTC demands abolition
National Committee on Textiles & Clothing (NCTC) has appealed to the Prime Minister Narendra Modi for removing Anti-Dumping Duty (ADD) on Viscose Staple Fibre (VSF) and address the VSF spun yarn availability and price issues to prevent job losses and stoppage of production across the VSF textile value chain.
The textile industry has been facing stagnation since many years mainly due to the lack of availability of the basic raw materials of man-made fibre / filament yarn at internationally competitive prices.
Farming on autopilot: Agritech startup Fasal uses IoT to help horticulture farmers go remote
For decades, Indian agriculture has relied on farmers’ intuition when it came to crop cycles, soil nutrients, climatic conditions, and other parameters. But even experienced farmers have not always been able to escape the perils of climate change, losing their crops to unpredictable weather conditions, soil degradation, and unmitigated pest attacks.
Barwani-based Farmkart is developing tech for farmers, agripreneurs in India
Coming from an agricultural background, Atul Patidar knew about the hardships of a farmer and their challenges in getting access to farming inputs, tools, and services at a lower cost. After having designed over 15 products for Fortune-500 companies at one of the top consulting firms in Toronto, Atul wanted to use his technical knowledge and capabilities to solve issues at his hometown Barwani, an agricultural municipality town near Indore, Madhya Pradesh.
National Statistical Office (NSO), Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation has All India Consumer Price Index (CPI) on Base 2012=100 and corresponding Consumer Food Price Index (CFPI) for Rural (R), Urban (U) and Combined (C) for the month of December2020 (Provisional)
FISME regularly receives monthly reports on the economies of various countries from their missions in India. These reports provide information on key economic parameters, trade related information and all news relevant for importers and exporters. In this edition you can take a look at reports on:
Write your comments on the FISME Factor. Share your views and suggestions on MSME issues. Win prize! The best mail will get a special book every fortnight.
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It is a matter of great pride that when the richest nations are struggling to get supplies of Covid vaccine, India has as the largest stockpile of the Covid vaccines under its belt. Not only is India the biggest manufacturer of vaccines in general, but what is of significance is one manufacturer has licence to produce Oxford vaccine and the other has developed it completely in house. There are two more vaccines in the fray for india trials of which are in final stages. If the mass vaccination is indeed carried out as planned: 300 mn people in next months, it would be biggest such exercise in the world. By sharing its prowess in vaccines India stands to gain diplomatically by being generous with neighbours and other fellow developing countries. It will have positive economic fall out as well both domestically and internationally. I wish readers of FISME Factor a very happy new year 2021.
"
To strengthen domestic manufacturing in select product categories and contain imports, FISME began its campaign with consultations in Panipat with acrylic/ polyester blanket manufacturer.
Focusing on 'Atmanirbhar Bharat', FISME has initiated a program with SIDBI and Centre for WTO Studies (IIFT, New Delhi) for ‘Creating a Roadmap for Substituting Chinese Imports by Building Manufacturing Capability in 15 Identified MSME Clusters’.
Acrylic/ polyester Blanket is one of the items chosen for the study and intervention. The study's overall objective is to identify what would it take to manufacture blankets in India and out-compete Chinese imports. Following the study, SIDBI along with FSME and other institutions will endeavour to provide the financial, technical and marketing support needed by the cluster.
The pandemic and everything related to it caught many business owners by surprise and, even worse, caused some businesses to fold. Yelp reported that permanent business closures have reached 97,966, representing 60% of closed businesses that won’t be reopening. Imagine investing so much into an entity, and because of some virus, things start to slow down, till they eventually go under.
The wholesale price-based inflation fell to 1.22 per cent in December on easing food prices, as per government data released on Thursday.
The inflation based on Wholesale Price Index (WPI) was 1.55 per cent in November 2020, and 2.76 per cent in December 2019 while the rate of inflation based on WPI Food Index decreased from 4.27 per cent in November 2020, to 0.92 per cent in December 2020. "The food index consisting of food articles from primary articles group and food product from manufactured products group has decreased from 158.9 in November 2020 to 154.4 in December 2020," said an official statement on Thursday.
Reserve Bank of India (RBI) Governor Shaktikanta Das headed Sub-Committee of the Financial Stability and Development Council (FSDC) has reviewed the major developments in the global and domestic economy as well as financial markets that impact financial stability.
The meeting of the Sub-Committee of the Financial Stability and Development Council (FSDC) was attended by various regulators, including SEBI and IRDAI.
Asset quality of Non-Banking Financial Companies (NBFCs) is expected to deteriorate further due to business disruptions caused by the Covid-19 pandemic, especially in the industry sector, one of the major recipients of NBFC credit, according to the latest financial stability report (FSR) by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI).
According to the report, NBFCs saw a decline in growth in 2019-20, largely due to isolated credit events in a few large NBFCs, challenges in accessing funds and the overall economic slowdown, with the pandemic’s impact adding to the stress in the later period. During 2019-20, credit extended by NBFCs grew by 4.4 per cent as compared with 22 per cent in 2018- 19.
Private lender ICICI Bank has tied up with Fintech Niyo to issue prepaid cards to workers of Micro, Small & Medium Enterprises (MSMEs).
With this, the MSMEs will now be able to avail ‘ICICI Bank Niyo Bharat Payroll Card’ powered by Visa, for their blue-collar workers, who are mostly unbanked. MSMEs will now be able to send the salaries of their workers on the card, which the workers will use as per their need in a seamless manner. The ‘ICICI Bank Niyo Bharat Payroll Card’ allows an individual to receive funds upto Rs. 1 lakh into the card account.
Online procurement of goods on Government e-Marketplace (GeM) by defence services and organisations under the Ministry of Defence grew 72 per cent by the end of December FY21 from around the year-ago period, said a senior official.
Defence Secretary Ajay Kumar took to the microblogging site twitter on New Year's day and said, “Defence Services & organizations are adopting Government e-Marketplace in their procurements rapidly. 72 per cent growth in 2020-21 over 2019-20.”
From goods procured worth Rs 1,406 crore as of November 30, 2019, the order value grew to Rs 2,425 crore, as per data shared by Kumar. The overall procurement by defence organisations and departments for FY20 stood at Rs 2,810 crore.
After examining the difficulties faced by Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs) while applying for Authorised Economic Operator (AEO) accreditation, the Central Board of Indirect Taxation & Customs (CBIC) has eased the custom compliance and security requirements involved in the process.
“The relaxation has been carried out to ensure that the MSMEs are facilitated through rationalized compliance requirements and minimum but effective security requirements,” said a circular dated December 15th which was issued by CBIC’s Directorate of International Customs (DIC).
Aiming to provide technical expertise in developing renewable energy projects, Indian Renewable Energy Development Agency Ltd. (IREDA), under administrative control of Ministry of New & Renewable Energy (MNRE) signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with NHPC Ltd., the PSU under Ministry of Power on Friday.
According to MoU, IREDA will undertake Techno-Financial due diligence of Renewable energy and Energy Efficiency & conservation projects for NHPC. IREDA will assist NHPC in developing an action plan to create and acquire Renewable Energy projects for the next 5 years.
West Bengal (WB) has topped among all the states in the country in the Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSME) sector with more than 135.52 lakh people getting employed in at least 88.67 lakh units in the state.
All India Trinamool Congress on Thursday took to the micro-blogging site twitter and said ''Under the guidance of Hon'ble CM @MamataOfficial, WB has emerged as one of the TOP performers in the MSME Sector, with 88L+ MSME units & employing 135L+ people!.''
In a bid to enhance Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSME), the Federation of Karnataka Chamber of Commerce and Industries (FKCCI) has urged the government to temporarily halt the "Inspector Raj and notification Raj".
FKCCI in its pre-Budget memorandum to Union Finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Tuesday said that "Inspector Raj and notification Raj" is a deterrent to the revival of the industries and halting it for the time being would enhance the ease of doing business.
Haryana State Industrial and Infrastructure Development Corporation (HSIIDC) will e-auction industrial plots of sizes 450, 1012.50, 1800, 2500, 3645, 4500, 7695, 8505, 8910, 9720, 10125 & 21250 Sq.
According to advertisements by the HSIIDC, 1 acre which is 4050 Sq metres is priced at Rs. 15,540/- per Sq. meters and for Hospital sites such as 4657.50 Sq. is priced at Rs 5.43 crores in prime locations of Industrial Model Township, Faridabad. For industrial plots the registration date has already started from January 1st and will remain till January 3oth while the auction for the same will start on February 15th.
Manipur has become eligible to mobilise additional financial resources of Rs.75 crore through Open Market Borrowings. Permission for the same was issued by the Department of Expenditure on 11th January, 2021.
State has become the 4th in the country to successfully undertake “Urban Local Bodies (ULB)” reforms stipulated by the Department of Expenditure, Ministry of Finance in its letter to the States dated 17th May, 2020.
The Union Cabinet has given its approval to the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) on Scientific and Technical Cooperation between National Centre of Meteorology (NCM), United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Ministry of Earth Sciences (MoES) India, according to an official statement.
The MoU provides for sharing of knowledge, data and operational products for meteorological, seismological and oceanic services, such as Radar, Satellite, Tide gauges, seismic and Meteorological stations. Organization of bilateral scientific and technical seminars/ workshops/ conferences and training courses on problems related to the fields of cooperation mentioned in the MoU and of interest to both countries.
Union Minister of Petroleum and Natural Gas & Steel Dharmendra Pradhan, interacted with H.E Mr. L. Oyun-Erdene, MP, Minister and Chief Cabinet Secretary of Mongolia and Co-Chair of the India-Mongolia Joint Committee on Cooperation and H.E G. Yondon, Minister of Mines and Heavy Industry through video conference on Friday.
Bilateral cooperation in hydrocarbons and steel sectors were comprehensively reviewed in the meetings. Pradhan conveyed deep appreciation to H.E Oyun-Erdene and H.E Yondon for their support in facilitating approvals for expeditious implementation of the green field Mongol Refinery Project, built under a Line of Credit from Government of India.
According to the FISME factor, 50% of MSMEs think that there will be high growth prospects for exports in Jan-Mar quarter while 50% think of moderate growth prospects. 
When I woke up to the news of battle lines being drawn between two of the world’s richest men over India’s lucrative retail market, I couldn’t help but wonder what this may mean for the people who are part of the companies they are fighting over and for the leaders of those organisations. One day, there is news that a billionaire retail giant is selling part of his business to a conglomerate owned by another billionaire giant.
Many resolutions made at the start of the new year will focus on personal finance and, in particular, how to make it grow. 2021 offers the chance to overcome the uncertainty of 2020. Entrepreneur Mickael Daussy, founder of the trading tool MKD FX, believes that knowing how best to invest the money you have will always be the surest way to help it grow. Here are four tips that entrepreneurs should consider in 2021, as per Daussy.
Digital marketing is the most effective way to reach your target audience, drive targeted traffic to your website, generate quality leads, and ultimately, close sales.
No matter how small or large your business is, having a deep understanding of what happens when you implement your digital marketing strategy is critical to making better decisions that will yield positive results. As such, having the right tools, processes, and people in place will only help elevate your efforts to meet your other business objectives.
National Committee on Textiles & Clothing (NCTC) has appealed to the Prime Minister Narendra Modi for removing Anti-Dumping Duty (ADD) on Viscose Staple Fibre (VSF) and address the VSF spun yarn availability and price issues to prevent job losses and stoppage of production across the VSF textile value chain.
The textile industry has been facing stagnation since many years mainly due to the lack of availability of the basic raw materials of man-made fibre / filament yarn at internationally competitive prices.
For decades, Indian agriculture has relied on farmers’ intuition when it came to crop cycles, soil nutrients, climatic conditions, and other parameters. But even experienced farmers have not always been able to escape the perils of climate change, losing their crops to unpredictable weather conditions, soil degradation, and unmitigated pest attacks.
Coming from an agricultural background, Atul Patidar knew about the hardships of a farmer and their challenges in getting access to farming inputs, tools, and services at a lower cost. After having designed over 15 products for Fortune-500 companies at one of the top consulting firms in Toronto, Atul wanted to use his technical knowledge and capabilities to solve issues at his hometown Barwani, an agricultural municipality town near Indore, Madhya Pradesh.
