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President's Message
" All of us are trying to deal with the challenges of demonetisation and the resulting cash crunch. While the jury is still out whether demonetisation was needed or not and to what extent would it be effective in curbing black money. We businessmen are pragmatic lot and do not have the luxury of debating these questions ad nauseam. We have to pick emerging signals and shape our business accordingly. And the unmistakable cue is that with demonetisation, continued push for digital monetary transactions and the looming GST, the business practices must change to conform to prevailing Labour and Taxation laws. Over 90% of our sector is unregistered and majority of which lies in sphere of informality. FISME has been holding discussions with large number of informal sector entrepreneurs and also with officials of the Ministry on the issue. Many entrepreneurs seem ready to migrate to formal sector but fear persecution on account of past non-compliance. Based on their inputs, I have written to the Prime Minister Modi asking for an amnesty for taxation and labour compliances. It has been widely reported in media. With the kind of positive response we are getting, I gather that the Government is also willing to facilitate such a transition of informal sector enterprises to formal sector.
"
The apex body for MSME associations in the country, FISME, in a letter to Prime Minister Narendra Modi has urged to bring two major policy interventions in - Taxation front and Labour Laws front - to help the sector smoothly migrate from cash based economy to a cashless economy.
The Federation of Indian Micro and Small & Medium Enterprises (FISME), which has been raising the grassroots level problems of the MSME sector, has highlighted the issues being faced by the entrepreneurs post demonetization.
SIDBI-FISME jointly with Federation of Karnataka Chambers of Commerce & Industry (FKCCI) organized the Meet ‘GST: Identifying implications and facilitating adoption by MSMEs’.
The meet was attended by more than 80 MSME entrepreneurs from the region along with experts on GST and SIDBI officials. The participants included manufacturers, traders and entrepreneurs from the service sector who were also leaders of sectoral and other sub-regional associations from the state of Karnataka.
You might start a business to follow your passion — something you’re good at and interested in. But as your business grows, you’ll inevitably find yourself doing less and less of whatever it was you started out doing.
You’ll find yourself focusing more on trying to find people smarter than you are to do a better job than you could have done.
Cash-starved micro small and medium enterprises (MSMEs) have sought a one- time “disclosure” scheme, which will allow them to declare their actual annual turnovers, with the promise that they will not be harassed for audit records of previous years.
MSMEs sometimes under report their turnovers to avail the tax benefits given by the Centre.
The Federation of Indian Micro and Small and Medium Enterprises (FISME) has written a letter to Prime Minister Narendra Modi on the issue, seeking a “scheme”, under which enterprises will pledge disclosure and compliance, but with the assurance that they will not be harassed thereafter and their previous records will not be opened.
Hindustan Times report on letter of FISME President addressed to the Prime Minister Click here >>
India's economic growth may slip to 5.5-6 per cent in the current quarter as demonetisation is expected to hurt production during November-December, says a Bank of America Merrill Lynch report.
"We expect demonetisation to hurt production in November-December. Each month of disruption hits growth by 0.3-0.5 per cent of GDP," BofA-ML said in a research note, adding that post note ban, discretionary demand has been badly affected.
India's crippling cash shortage could be mostly resolved by mid-January and completely disappear by the end of February as the demand-supply gap narrows with higher currency printing.
Cash disbursement to the public could touch Rs 9 lakh crore by the second week of January if the government's printing presses work at the current pace, senior bankers told ET. This would be more than 50% of the amount withdrawn from the system, assuming that almost all of the Rs 15 lakh crore in old Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 notes is deposited with banks by the end of December.
In FY16, total wealth held by individuals in India has grown by 8.5 per cent to Rs. 304 lakh crore, according to an assessment by wealth management firm Karvy. Karvy predicts that the overall individual wealth in India is expected to grow to Rs. 558 lakh crore from the current Rs. 304 lakh crore at a CAGR of 12.90 per cent over the next 5 years. Asset-wise, Karvy found that the total individual wealth in financial assets grew by only 7.14% per cent to Rs 172 lakh crore in FY16, much slower than in FY15 when wealth had grown nearly 19 per cent mainly dampened by the bleak performance of direct equities.
Government is likely to notify this week the scheme giving tax dodgers another chance to come clean by paying 50 per cent of tax on junked currency deposited in banks post demonetisation. The Pradhan Mantri Garib Kalyan Yojana (PMGKY) provides for 50 per cent taxes and surcharge on declarations of unaccounted cash deposited in banks. Declarants also have to park a quarter of the total sum in a non-interest bearing deposit for four years.
World Bank will provide an additional USD 5.19 million grant to MSME industries in the country to help them adopt efficient energy means.
Grant will be provided through World Bank's International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD) arm.
An agreement for Global Environment Facility (GEF) Grant of USD 5.19 million for 'Additional Financing for Financing Energy Efficiency at MSMEs Project- Programmatic Framework for Energy Efficiency' was signed here today, said an official release.
Indian manufacturing SME sector currently contributes about 8% to the country's GDP, but has the potential to be a game changer for the economy. That, however, does not mean we do not have any enterprises that we can celebrate. To recognise the good work done by many across the manufacturing sector, Power2SME in association with TiE Delhi-NCR would hold the third Spirit of Manufacturing Awards during the TiE Global Summit on December 16.
To help new businesses get off the blocks, online tax filing portal ClearTax has launched a new platform for startups that promises to make these companies operational in three weeks. Under the 'ClearTax Startup Platform', the portal would assist new businesses by providing advisory services, incorporate the firm to help them raise capital for business, suggest business and legal agreements and assist in tax registration.
After the recent demonetization drive launched by the Modi government, ‘cashless’ has become the buzzword. The government is trying to boost the use of digital modes of payment. Going digital is a great ploy that will reap plenty of economic rewards in the long run.
While people at large have been supportive of this move, going digital comes at a cost, at least for now.
Here we will take a look at how going cashless is expected to impact the monthly budget of the typical Indian household.
Encouraging the people in Haryana to go for cashless transactions, Haryana Government has come out with a scheme to award citizens of the state using digital modes for payments.
Government of Haryana has identified five key methods of digital payments -Debit/Credit Cards/ Internet Banking; UPI (Unified Payment Interface) – 28 national banks have on-boarded with VPA (Virtual Payment Account); USSID *99# (Unstructured Supplementary Service Data) with MMID ( Mobile Money Identifier) and Mobile PIN (MPIN); e-Wallet like SBI Buddy, PNB MobiPay, ICICI iMobile, PayTM, Freecharge, M-paisa, Airtel Money, Oxygen, Mobiquick etc; and AEPS (Aadhaar Enabled Payment System) using PoS devices and Aadhaar / biometric authentication.
The Karnataka Small Scale Industries Association (KASSIA) in partnership with the state government today organized a workshop for MSMEs on “Front End Business Process on GST Portal”.
The Workshop, a first of its kind, was organized by the Goods & Services Tax Network (GSTN) to explain the front end IT infrastructure and the portal encompassing the GST system, said KASSIA President A Padmanabha. He said it was an extremely significant event where the complete outline of the GST registration, payment and the return processes were explained in detail.
The Kerala Government is organizing a three-day micro, small and medium enterprises (MSME) B2B meet, Vyapar 2017, in Kochi from February 2.
The Kerala government has invited buyers from Andhra Pradesh and Telangana to actively participate in the meet and hold direct interaction with the participating manufacturers and sellers from Kerala.
A string of SME sectors, including food processing, handloom textiles and garments, rubber, coir products, Ayurveda and herbal, electrical and electronics and traditional sectors like handicrafts and bamboo, will display their products during the meet, a release said here today.
Recognizing the importance of Innovation and Automation for business growth, as many as 26 city based micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs) have joined hands with German Development Corporation, GIZ, for the programme it runs with MSME Ministry on technology upgradation.
German Government Arm- GIZ - in partnership with the Ministry of MSME, Government of India, is working for the technological upgradation of indian MSME units under the joint programme "Promotion of Innovation in MSMEs“.
During conclaves, the Memorandums on investments are signed but they get stuck at implementation level and long-time taken on approvals.
The biggest ever investment expo in the state, Make in Odisha ended on Friday.
The investments worth Rs 2.03 lakh crore and 1.4 lakh jobs were envisaged for the state during conclave in 10 sectors.
While traditional investors like Vedanta, Jindal and Tata Steel promised to invest about Rs 97,000 crore in mines & mineral sectors, labour intensive sectors like IT & electronics, manufacturing, apparels, biotechnology, tourism, petrochemicals, chemicals & plastics and food processing saw promises of investment to the tune of Rs 10,000 crore. More than 80 companies have shown interest to invest.
The largest economies of Asia - India and China - will help maintain the growth rate of the region at 5.7 per cent in 2016 and 2017, an Asian Development Bank (ADB) report said on Tuesday.
"Asia is expected to maintain 5.7 per cent growth in 2016 and 2017, buoyed by resilience in the region's largest economies, the People's Republic of China and India," said ADB's Asian Economic Integration Report 2016 released here.
India is likely to finalise an air cargo service pact with Afghanistan to boost bilateral trade and gain leverage in the war-ravaged country as Pakistan continues to deny transit link for Indo-Afghan trade through its territory.
The issue will be discussed during bilateral meeting between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Afghan President Ashraf Ghani on the sidelines of the two-day Heart of Asia conference which began here today.
The Cabinet today approved an agreement to be signed with Kyrgyzstan for cooperation in agriculture and food-related industry.
The proposed agreement will come into force on the date of its signing and would be for a period of five years, an official statement said.
"The proposed agreement between India and Kyrgyzstan covers various activities in the field of agriculture and allied sector," it said.
The agreement provides for setting up of a 'Joint Working Group' comprising of representatives from both countries.
Will demonetisation alone put an end to black money?
According to the FISME Factor, 53 percent of Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises agree that demonetisation alone will put an end to black money whereas 48 percent think that this measure is not sufficient in itself to put an end to black money.
A startup cofounder takes a plunge into underwater caves
Coming from a family that was in the timber business in Assam, Bhavjot Kaur spent a lot of time living in jungle cabins in the lush hills of the North East. Her love for the outdoors started right then, says the 29-year-old cofounder of Clinikk Heathcare, a Bengaluru based startup.
The more than two decades of experience in the financial services sector, a majority of which was with a leading non-banking finance company and a short while with a housing finance company, laid the foundation for D Arulmany’s journey as an entrepreneur. When he decided to venture out on his own, he was clear that it would be in financial services.
What strategy should regional brands follow to win over customers?
Havmor Ice Cream, for years happy to be a small ice cream brand in Gujarat, is now morphing into a national player, living up to the literal meaning of its name. In the next four years, the company's managing director, Ankit Chona, wants to double turnover to Rs 1,000 crore, is doubling production capacity and will be in 13 states by the end of this year - with firm aspirations to be a national brand soon.
Policy delays making startups increasingly disillusioned with the Modi government
More needs to be done by the government if Indian startups are to claim their rightful share of opportunities unfolding across sectors from consumer internet to software products say investors and entrepreneurs who are voicing rising discontent over what they term as "a lack of adequate policy support."
For 360° problem-solving with advanced data analytics
There’s no shortage of talk on big data and its uses. But it’s worth asking if both customers and businesses are touching only the surface just yet. What consumes one start-up, iPredicct, is how far advanced analytics can go – this 2015-born start-up has filed three patents keeping the concept of data-led decision-making at the forefront of its growth.
1001 Startup Idea | Brain Music for Improving Performance
This is the story of a man who failed in Class 6, but went on to join the Regional Engineering College (now the National Institute of Technology), Calicut and the Indian Institute of Management-Bangalore.
This is the story of a man who decided to become an entrepreneur and employ people from rural India.
Today, fresh idli and dosa batter made by P C Mustafa’s company ID Fresh reaches homes in Bengaluru, Chennai, Pune, Mumbai, Delhi, Hyderabad, Mangaluru and even Dubai.
The Central Statistics Office (CSO), Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation, has released the Consumer Price Index numbers on base 2012=100 for rural, urban and combined for the month of June 2016
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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You are receiving this Newsletter because you are included in our mailing list of recipients who are involved or interested in FISME or Indian MSMEs. You are welcome to partly or fully reproduce and disseminate the contents of this publication provided that you acknowledge the source.
This Newsletter is edited by the FISME Secretariat. We welcome contributions as well as comments and suggestions. Please write to newsletter@fisme.org.in
" All of us are trying to deal with the challenges of demonetisation and the resulting cash crunch. While the jury is still out whether demonetisation was needed or not and to what extent would it be effective in curbing black money. We businessmen are pragmatic lot and do not have the luxury of debating these questions ad nauseam. We have to pick emerging signals and shape our business accordingly. And the unmistakable cue is that with demonetisation, continued push for digital monetary transactions and the looming GST, the business practices must change to conform to prevailing Labour and Taxation laws. Over 90% of our sector is unregistered and majority of which lies in sphere of informality. FISME has been holding discussions with large number of informal sector entrepreneurs and also with officials of the Ministry on the issue. Many entrepreneurs seem ready to migrate to formal sector but fear persecution on account of past non-compliance. Based on their inputs, I have written to the Prime Minister Modi asking for an amnesty for taxation and labour compliances. It has been widely reported in media. With the kind of positive response we are getting, I gather that the Government is also willing to facilitate such a transition of informal sector enterprises to formal sector.
"
The apex body for MSME associations in the country, FISME, in a letter to Prime Minister Narendra Modi has urged to bring two major policy interventions in - Taxation front and Labour Laws front - to help the sector smoothly migrate from cash based economy to a cashless economy.
The Federation of Indian Micro and Small & Medium Enterprises (FISME), which has been raising the grassroots level problems of the MSME sector, has highlighted the issues being faced by the entrepreneurs post demonetization.
SIDBI-FISME jointly with Federation of Karnataka Chambers of Commerce & Industry (FKCCI) organized the Meet ‘GST: Identifying implications and facilitating adoption by MSMEs’.
The meet was attended by more than 80 MSME entrepreneurs from the region along with experts on GST and SIDBI officials. The participants included manufacturers, traders and entrepreneurs from the service sector who were also leaders of sectoral and other sub-regional associations from the state of Karnataka.
You might start a business to follow your passion — something you’re good at and interested in. But as your business grows, you’ll inevitably find yourself doing less and less of whatever it was you started out doing.
You’ll find yourself focusing more on trying to find people smarter than you are to do a better job than you could have done.
India's economic growth may slip to 5.5-6 per cent in the current quarter as demonetisation is expected to hurt production during November-December, says a Bank of America Merrill Lynch report.
"We expect demonetisation to hurt production in November-December. Each month of disruption hits growth by 0.3-0.5 per cent of GDP," BofA-ML said in a research note, adding that post note ban, discretionary demand has been badly affected.
India's crippling cash shortage could be mostly resolved by mid-January and completely disappear by the end of February as the demand-supply gap narrows with higher currency printing.
Cash disbursement to the public could touch Rs 9 lakh crore by the second week of January if the government's printing presses work at the current pace, senior bankers told ET. This would be more than 50% of the amount withdrawn from the system, assuming that almost all of the Rs 15 lakh crore in old Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 notes is deposited with banks by the end of December.
Government is likely to notify this week the scheme giving tax dodgers another chance to come clean by paying 50 per cent of tax on junked currency deposited in banks post demonetisation. The Pradhan Mantri Garib Kalyan Yojana (PMGKY) provides for 50 per cent taxes and surcharge on declarations of unaccounted cash deposited in banks. Declarants also have to park a quarter of the total sum in a non-interest bearing deposit for four years.
World Bank will provide an additional USD 5.19 million grant to MSME industries in the country to help them adopt efficient energy means.
Grant will be provided through World Bank's International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD) arm.
An agreement for Global Environment Facility (GEF) Grant of USD 5.19 million for 'Additional Financing for Financing Energy Efficiency at MSMEs Project- Programmatic Framework for Energy Efficiency' was signed here today, said an official release.
Indian manufacturing SME sector currently contributes about 8% to the country's GDP, but has the potential to be a game changer for the economy. That, however, does not mean we do not have any enterprises that we can celebrate. To recognise the good work done by many across the manufacturing sector, Power2SME in association with TiE Delhi-NCR would hold the third Spirit of Manufacturing Awards during the TiE Global Summit on December 16.
To help new businesses get off the blocks, online tax filing portal ClearTax has launched a new platform for startups that promises to make these companies operational in three weeks. Under the 'ClearTax Startup Platform', the portal would assist new businesses by providing advisory services, incorporate the firm to help them raise capital for business, suggest business and legal agreements and assist in tax registration.
After the recent demonetization drive launched by the Modi government, ‘cashless’ has become the buzzword. The government is trying to boost the use of digital modes of payment. Going digital is a great ploy that will reap plenty of economic rewards in the long run.
While people at large have been supportive of this move, going digital comes at a cost, at least for now.
Here we will take a look at how going cashless is expected to impact the monthly budget of the typical Indian household.
Encouraging the people in Haryana to go for cashless transactions, Haryana Government has come out with a scheme to award citizens of the state using digital modes for payments.
Government of Haryana has identified five key methods of digital payments -Debit/Credit Cards/ Internet Banking; UPI (Unified Payment Interface) – 28 national banks have on-boarded with VPA (Virtual Payment Account); USSID *99# (Unstructured Supplementary Service Data) with MMID ( Mobile Money Identifier) and Mobile PIN (MPIN); e-Wallet like SBI Buddy, PNB MobiPay, ICICI iMobile, PayTM, Freecharge, M-paisa, Airtel Money, Oxygen, Mobiquick etc; and AEPS (Aadhaar Enabled Payment System) using PoS devices and Aadhaar / biometric authentication.
The Karnataka Small Scale Industries Association (KASSIA) in partnership with the state government today organized a workshop for MSMEs on “Front End Business Process on GST Portal”.
The Workshop, a first of its kind, was organized by the Goods & Services Tax Network (GSTN) to explain the front end IT infrastructure and the portal encompassing the GST system, said KASSIA President A Padmanabha. He said it was an extremely significant event where the complete outline of the GST registration, payment and the return processes were explained in detail.
The Kerala Government is organizing a three-day micro, small and medium enterprises (MSME) B2B meet, Vyapar 2017, in Kochi from February 2.
The Kerala government has invited buyers from Andhra Pradesh and Telangana to actively participate in the meet and hold direct interaction with the participating manufacturers and sellers from Kerala.
A string of SME sectors, including food processing, handloom textiles and garments, rubber, coir products, Ayurveda and herbal, electrical and electronics and traditional sectors like handicrafts and bamboo, will display their products during the meet, a release said here today.
Recognizing the importance of Innovation and Automation for business growth, as many as 26 city based micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs) have joined hands with German Development Corporation, GIZ, for the programme it runs with MSME Ministry on technology upgradation.
German Government Arm- GIZ - in partnership with the Ministry of MSME, Government of India, is working for the technological upgradation of indian MSME units under the joint programme "Promotion of Innovation in MSMEs“.
During conclaves, the Memorandums on investments are signed but they get stuck at implementation level and long-time taken on approvals.
The biggest ever investment expo in the state, Make in Odisha ended on Friday.
The investments worth Rs 2.03 lakh crore and 1.4 lakh jobs were envisaged for the state during conclave in 10 sectors.
While traditional investors like Vedanta, Jindal and Tata Steel promised to invest about Rs 97,000 crore in mines & mineral sectors, labour intensive sectors like IT & electronics, manufacturing, apparels, biotechnology, tourism, petrochemicals, chemicals & plastics and food processing saw promises of investment to the tune of Rs 10,000 crore. More than 80 companies have shown interest to invest.
The largest economies of Asia - India and China - will help maintain the growth rate of the region at 5.7 per cent in 2016 and 2017, an Asian Development Bank (ADB) report said on Tuesday.
"Asia is expected to maintain 5.7 per cent growth in 2016 and 2017, buoyed by resilience in the region's largest economies, the People's Republic of China and India," said ADB's Asian Economic Integration Report 2016 released here.
India is likely to finalise an air cargo service pact with Afghanistan to boost bilateral trade and gain leverage in the war-ravaged country as Pakistan continues to deny transit link for Indo-Afghan trade through its territory.
The issue will be discussed during bilateral meeting between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Afghan President Ashraf Ghani on the sidelines of the two-day Heart of Asia conference which began here today.
The Cabinet today approved an agreement to be signed with Kyrgyzstan for cooperation in agriculture and food-related industry.
The proposed agreement will come into force on the date of its signing and would be for a period of five years, an official statement said.
"The proposed agreement between India and Kyrgyzstan covers various activities in the field of agriculture and allied sector," it said.
The agreement provides for setting up of a 'Joint Working Group' comprising of representatives from both countries.
According to the FISME Factor, 53 percent of Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises agree that demonetisation alone will put an end to black money whereas 48 percent think that this measure is not sufficient in itself to put an end to black money. 
Coming from a family that was in the timber business in Assam, Bhavjot Kaur spent a lot of time living in jungle cabins in the lush hills of the North East. Her love for the outdoors started right then, says the 29-year-old cofounder of Clinikk Heathcare, a Bengaluru based startup.
The more than two decades of experience in the financial services sector, a majority of which was with a leading non-banking finance company and a short while with a housing finance company, laid the foundation for D Arulmany’s journey as an entrepreneur. When he decided to venture out on his own, he was clear that it would be in financial services.
Havmor Ice Cream, for years happy to be a small ice cream brand in Gujarat, is now morphing into a national player, living up to the literal meaning of its name. In the next four years, the company's managing director, Ankit Chona, wants to double turnover to Rs 1,000 crore, is doubling production capacity and will be in 13 states by the end of this year - with firm aspirations to be a national brand soon.
More needs to be done by the government if Indian startups are to claim their rightful share of opportunities unfolding across sectors from consumer internet to software products say investors and entrepreneurs who are voicing rising discontent over what they term as "a lack of adequate policy support."
There’s no shortage of talk on big data and its uses. But it’s worth asking if both customers and businesses are touching only the surface just yet. What consumes one start-up, iPredicct, is how far advanced analytics can go – this 2015-born start-up has filed three patents keeping the concept of data-led decision-making at the forefront of its growth.
This is the story of a man who failed in Class 6, but went on to join the Regional Engineering College (now the National Institute of Technology), Calicut and the Indian Institute of Management-Bangalore.
This is the story of a man who decided to become an entrepreneur and employ people from rural India.
Today, fresh idli and dosa batter made by P C Mustafa’s company ID Fresh reaches homes in Bengaluru, Chennai, Pune, Mumbai, Delhi, Hyderabad, Mangaluru and even Dubai.
“ The big secret in life is that there is no big secret. Whatever your goal, you can get there if you’re willing to work. ”
