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President's Message
" The American oil tycoon and the richest industrialist in 50s, J. Paul Getty once famously remarked, ‘if you owe the bank $100 that's your problem. If you owe the bank $100 million, that's the bank's problem’. The moral of the famous one liner is that banks are insensitive to smaller borrowers but are ready to bend backward and break any rule to please for the larger borrowers. (The NPAs of the Indian PSU banks give you enough cues). That is why one needs market regulators. Sadly, in India the regulator of banks, the RBI, also has been largely indifferent to MSME needs and during in recent years it has become even more so. FISME has been critical of RBI’s Special Mention Account (SMA) scheme which requires banks to notify even possibility of default on loan instalment as SMA in the case of former, and the mandatory rating scheme through a handful rating agencies if the exposure is over 5 crore, in the case of latter. The RBI’s insistence of applying these policies on MSMEs highlights their poor understanding of the ground realities. In a country where payments due to MSMEs are over delayed as a norm, by even Government agencies what to talk of large corporates, putting them under watch list even for possibility of delay in payment of installment is ludicrous. It makes access to finance even more difficult. Many MSMEs are facing such a situation in recent times.
"
INDIA’S TRADE SYMPOSIUM
Linking LDCs into India’s Global Value Chains and
Launch of India’s Commonwealth SME Association
29th -30th June 2016
Hotel Taj Palace, Delhi, India
In 2010, Bijoor started Joor as an online global marketplace for wholesale buying for fashion retailers. It is based in New York City and now has offices in Los Angeles and Milan.
After getting her MBA from Wharton in 2005, Bijoor worked as a consultant before moving into fashion. "Work ethic is put down these days," Bijoor says, acknowledging the shift in popular culture toward prioritizing health and well-being over all-nighters and few days off.
Growth signals remain mixed, while prices are rising. It’s time for effective policy intervention
There can be no escaping the fact that the dismal factory output numbers for April do not sit well with the buoyant GDP data for the fourth quarter released barely a fortnight ago. The index of industrial production (IIP) for April 2016 declined by 0.8 per cent, and for the year 2015-16 it was up just 2.4 per cent, with manufacturing, which accounts for a weight of 75 per cent in the IIP, growing even less at 2 per cent. The GDP data for 2015-16, however, points to an industrial growth of about 8 per cent...
Growth of industrial output fell 0.8 per cent in April 2016, pulled down by the manufacturing sector, which contracted 3.1 per cent from the same month in 2015.
The April numbers are a break in the rising trend of February and March. In March, the Index of Industrial Production (IIP) rose 0.1 per cent over the same month of 2015. Industrial output grew 2.4 per cent in 2015-16, slower than the 2.8 per cent in 2014-15.
Contraction in manufacturing, which constitutes roughly three-fourths of the index, led the IIP towards a fall even as electricity generation increased 14.6 per cent and mining output climbed 1.4 per cent, government data showed on Friday.
The Reserve Bank of India’s attitude is not good and the Finance Minister should intervene himself, said Economist VK Suri after the review of monetary policy in which the Cash Reserve Ratio and Repo Rate were unchanged.
Talking to KNN, he said, “RBI being an autonomous body does not mean that you don’t focus on the things which are clearly visible. World economists are telling that there is a scope of rate cut. RBI should focus to growth with the inflation.
The textiles industry now contributes 15 per cent to India’s exports, marking the sector’s growth, Textiles Minister Santosh Kumar Gangwar said on Friday while announcing the Ministry’s two-year achievements.
“More than ₹6,500 crore has been spent by the Ministry of Textiles on various schemes for promotion and development of the textiles sector. Approximately five lakh additional jobs have been created in the past two years in the sector,” Gangwar said. The Ministry also aims to increase the earning of handloom weavers to ₹500 per day.
India's trade portal has become a source of inspiration for its neighbours, some of which have sought help from the country to set up similar online platforms.
Nepal, Bhutan and Sri Lanka have evinced interest in adopting the best practices of indiantradeportal. in, which makes available comprehensive regulatory and business information through a single window to promote international trade.
"Our South Asian neighbours like our trade portal and want to learn more about sharing information on rules of origin, duties and incentives with exporters," said Ajay Sahai, director general of the Federation of Indian Export Organisations, which maintains the portal.
The RBI’s monetary policy decision on June 7 was on expected lines. Governor Rajan maintained status quo on three key variables. He reaffirmed that the RBI continues to remain accommodative and reiterated the central bank’s commitment to gradually move towards an easy systemic liquidity framework. He also kept the repo rate unchanged. Inflation still a worry
However, he cautioned markets on the upside risks to inflation, evidenced by the higher-than-expected inflation registered in April.
The sugar industry is calling for long-term export policy even as a tweet from food minister Ram Vilas Paswan about imposing 25% export duty on the commodity on Thursday effectively crashed their hopes of cashing in on the recent rally in world sugar prices.
The industry said the government's knee-jerk way of managing sugar surplus and deficit affecting the trade adversely, adding that the proposed 25% export duty would impact about 50,000 tonne to 75,000 tonne sugar in transit.
Recognising that seamless movement of freight vehicles is key to bringing down expenditure on logistics and pushing economic activity, a group of transport ministers from 20 states has called for a unified system for paying taxes and charges levied by different state governments. They said there was a need to put in place a system to improve connectivity with rural areas and also recommended the fixing of fares of city taxis, including those operating under aggregators, to encourage people to shun private vehicles.
Micro, Small & Medium Enterprises Development Institute (MSME-DI), Ministry of MSME, Government of India will organize two weeks Entrepreneurship Development Programme (EDP) at Hyderabad from June 20 to July 01 to assistance for the entrepreneurs interested in setting up their own business. Under the EDP, several topics would be covered like step by step approach of starting a micro/small enterprise, entrepreneurial qualities & characteristics, communication skills, role and support of Government agencies like DIC & R&D Institutions, state and central government schemes for MSMEs, business opportunity identification, registrations & licenses , project report preparation, sales and marketing management, financial management, etc.
The Confederation of All India Traders (CAIT) in a communication sent to Prime Minister Narendra Modi has urged for a National Trade Policy for Retail Trade and a separate ministry for Internal Trade.
It has also suggested that Foreign Trade should be transferred to Ministry of External Affairs and Ministry of Commerce should be designated to look after and monitor domestic trade.
The CAIT has also suggested that MUDRA should be made as an independent regulator since loans under Mudra are yet to reach actual beneficiary.
The allotment of land for industries, which was till recently mired in uncertainty due to the 99-year lease proposal, is happening much faster after the government’s decision to give land on outright sale basis.
Talking to KNN, the Vice President of Andhra Pradesh Chambers Of Commerce and Industry Federation (APCCIF), Sambhasiva Rao said that, "As an MSME entrepreneur, you require the money to take the land, for taking the land on lease basis;
A Vibrant Ceramics summit is being organized at the Sabarmati river front in Ahmedabad from December 16-18, 2016 to popularize the ceramic sector of India which is amongst the top 10 global producers and consumers of ceramic tiles.
Together with the support of Government of Gujarat and jointly with Morbi business associations, Octagon Communications and Global Network are organizing Vibrant Ceramics 2016.
Jharkhand Chief Minister Raghubar Das today said the state will impart skill training to at least 20 lakh youth in the next five years and efforts are on to set up 500 skill training centres to achieve the target. The centres would train students and the unemployed among others and priority would be given to Schedule Tribe and Schedule Caste youth, an official release said quoting Das at a meeting here.
The West Bengal government is planning to formulate an action plan for fostering start ups in the State.
“By 2020, we aim to make West Bengal one of the top three States in IT and IT-enabled services,” the state’s newly-appointed IT Minister Bratya Basu said in an interactive session with the National Association of Software and Service Companies (NASSCOM) here on Wednesday.
Nasscom is the representative body of IT industries in India.
He called upon industry to join the government to help dispel the negative perception that the state suffers from.
India and Mexico has stressed upon the necessity of developing a greater connectivity between the two countries and encouraging cooperation in the infrastructure sector, among small and medium enterprises (SMEs), in pharmaceutical products, in energy, in the automobile sector, in Information and Communication Technology, in agriculture, in food processing and in other related sectors.
This was stated by Enrique Peña Nieto, President of the United Mexican States and Narendra Modi, Prime Minister of India, in a joint statement in Mexico.
India and Qatar today signed seven agreements, including one on finance intelligence to check money laundering and terrorism financing and another to woo foreign investment in the infrastructure sector from the gas-rich Gulf state.
Cooperation and investment in areas of skill development and education, health, tourism and sports between the two countries were the other agreements signed by Indian and Qatar officials in the presence of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Emir Sheikh Tamim Bin Hamad Al Thani.
India and Singapore on Friday held the first dialogue between their Defence Ministers as they agreed to enhance the scale and complexity of existing bilateral military interaction, at a time when freedom of navigation in international waterways has emerged as a major concern.
The first Defence Ministers’ Dialogue between Manohar Parrikar and his Singaporean counterpart Ng Eng Hen marked raising of bilateral defence cooperation to the highest level.
“We had very detailed discussions. We have agreed on expanding the interaction between the armed forces and defence R&D and industry participation,” Parrikar told reporters after the dialogue.
The Modi-Led Govt Completes Two Years In Office This Month. Do you think it fulfilled the expectations?
According to the FISME Factor, about 63 percent of Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs) think that the Modi govt. has fulfilled its expectations while 25 percent think otherwise whereas 12 percent can’t say anything about this.
Surfing the Digital wave: Towards future ready SMEs
Digital transformation is the key growth driver for SMEs as they work towards scaling their business. In fact, most SMEs are witnessing a paradigm shift in their business models with the usage of simple and cost-effective digital technologies.Market trends and the success of early adoptershave emphasized that digital technology is more of a necessity than a choice for SMEs.
Be rational about revenue when starting a new business
My driver on a recent longish Uber ride was a 25-year old management graduate from one of the well-known Bschools. Lets call him Alex.
He had been driving for Uber for the last six months after he quit his job with a multinational firm that recruited him from the campus. He needed that time to make his business plan, do some market research and work on a few tie-ups.
How flexible packaging became an extension for branding & marketing
'Change is the only constant thing in this world' - quite an oxymoron, isn't it? I remember those days back in the eighties when the unit packs or sachets as they are commonly known as created ripples in the Indian market. It was a change in how people perceived products. It was a change in how people purchased things. It marked a sea change in how people used products. The ever swelling middle class of the country suddenly started finding FMCG brands affordable.
Ludhiana cycle industry was already suffering due to cheap Chinese imports; why invite them: MSMEs
The bicycle industry in Ludhiana, which mostly consists of the micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs), has asked the state government not to promote Chinese industry in Ludhiana.
The reaction came after the Deputy Chief Minister Sukhbir Singh Badal Sunday met the Chinese Bicycle Association (CBA) in Shanghai and invited them to invest in Ludhiana, where, he said 300 acres of land has been set aside for manufacturing high-end bicycles.
Pune-based sports goods retailer Shaival Gandhi believes in spending on digital advertising rather than offering deep discounts. "At the end of the day, 'jo dikhta hai, who bikta hai' (products which are visible, sell well)," said Gandhi, founder-director of Pace Sports and Entertainment, who incurs a cost of 10-15 per cent on his margin for online promotion. Of late, marketplaces have shifted focus to generating ad revenues from big brands which can fund sustained digital campaigns.
Cake walk for Kashmiri woman entrepreneur Saniya Lone in a man's world
Twenty-six-year-old Saniya Lone had many easier career options. But she rather made a more difficult choice and the tryst with entrepreneurial success for the hijab-clad management graduate turned out to be a cake walk, literally.
The Central Statistics Office (CSO), Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation, has released the Quick Estimates of Index of Industrial Production (IIP) with base 2004-05 for the month of September 2015
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.
send mail to: newsletter@fisme.org.in
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This Newsletter is edited by the FISME Secretariat. We welcome contributions as well as comments and suggestions. Please write to newsletter@fisme.org.in
" The American oil tycoon and the richest industrialist in 50s, J. Paul Getty once famously remarked, ‘if you owe the bank $100 that's your problem. If you owe the bank $100 million, that's the bank's problem’. The moral of the famous one liner is that banks are insensitive to smaller borrowers but are ready to bend backward and break any rule to please for the larger borrowers. (The NPAs of the Indian PSU banks give you enough cues). That is why one needs market regulators. Sadly, in India the regulator of banks, the RBI, also has been largely indifferent to MSME needs and during in recent years it has become even more so. FISME has been critical of RBI’s Special Mention Account (SMA) scheme which requires banks to notify even possibility of default on loan instalment as SMA in the case of former, and the mandatory rating scheme through a handful rating agencies if the exposure is over 5 crore, in the case of latter. The RBI’s insistence of applying these policies on MSMEs highlights their poor understanding of the ground realities. In a country where payments due to MSMEs are over delayed as a norm, by even Government agencies what to talk of large corporates, putting them under watch list even for possibility of delay in payment of installment is ludicrous. It makes access to finance even more difficult. Many MSMEs are facing such a situation in recent times.
"
In 2010, Bijoor started Joor as an online global marketplace for wholesale buying for fashion retailers. It is based in New York City and now has offices in Los Angeles and Milan.
After getting her MBA from Wharton in 2005, Bijoor worked as a consultant before moving into fashion. "Work ethic is put down these days," Bijoor says, acknowledging the shift in popular culture toward prioritizing health and well-being over all-nighters and few days off.
Growth of industrial output fell 0.8 per cent in April 2016, pulled down by the manufacturing sector, which contracted 3.1 per cent from the same month in 2015.
The April numbers are a break in the rising trend of February and March. In March, the Index of Industrial Production (IIP) rose 0.1 per cent over the same month of 2015. Industrial output grew 2.4 per cent in 2015-16, slower than the 2.8 per cent in 2014-15.
Contraction in manufacturing, which constitutes roughly three-fourths of the index, led the IIP towards a fall even as electricity generation increased 14.6 per cent and mining output climbed 1.4 per cent, government data showed on Friday.
The Reserve Bank of India’s attitude is not good and the Finance Minister should intervene himself, said Economist VK Suri after the review of monetary policy in which the Cash Reserve Ratio and Repo Rate were unchanged.
Talking to KNN, he said, “RBI being an autonomous body does not mean that you don’t focus on the things which are clearly visible. World economists are telling that there is a scope of rate cut. RBI should focus to growth with the inflation.
The textiles industry now contributes 15 per cent to India’s exports, marking the sector’s growth, Textiles Minister Santosh Kumar Gangwar said on Friday while announcing the Ministry’s two-year achievements.
“More than ₹6,500 crore has been spent by the Ministry of Textiles on various schemes for promotion and development of the textiles sector. Approximately five lakh additional jobs have been created in the past two years in the sector,” Gangwar said. The Ministry also aims to increase the earning of handloom weavers to ₹500 per day.
India's trade portal has become a source of inspiration for its neighbours, some of which have sought help from the country to set up similar online platforms.
Nepal, Bhutan and Sri Lanka have evinced interest in adopting the best practices of indiantradeportal. in, which makes available comprehensive regulatory and business information through a single window to promote international trade.
"Our South Asian neighbours like our trade portal and want to learn more about sharing information on rules of origin, duties and incentives with exporters," said Ajay Sahai, director general of the Federation of Indian Export Organisations, which maintains the portal.
The RBI’s monetary policy decision on June 7 was on expected lines. Governor Rajan maintained status quo on three key variables. He reaffirmed that the RBI continues to remain accommodative and reiterated the central bank’s commitment to gradually move towards an easy systemic liquidity framework. He also kept the repo rate unchanged. Inflation still a worry
However, he cautioned markets on the upside risks to inflation, evidenced by the higher-than-expected inflation registered in April.
The sugar industry is calling for long-term export policy even as a tweet from food minister Ram Vilas Paswan about imposing 25% export duty on the commodity on Thursday effectively crashed their hopes of cashing in on the recent rally in world sugar prices.
The industry said the government's knee-jerk way of managing sugar surplus and deficit affecting the trade adversely, adding that the proposed 25% export duty would impact about 50,000 tonne to 75,000 tonne sugar in transit.
Recognising that seamless movement of freight vehicles is key to bringing down expenditure on logistics and pushing economic activity, a group of transport ministers from 20 states has called for a unified system for paying taxes and charges levied by different state governments. They said there was a need to put in place a system to improve connectivity with rural areas and also recommended the fixing of fares of city taxis, including those operating under aggregators, to encourage people to shun private vehicles.
Micro, Small & Medium Enterprises Development Institute (MSME-DI), Ministry of MSME, Government of India will organize two weeks Entrepreneurship Development Programme (EDP) at Hyderabad from June 20 to July 01 to assistance for the entrepreneurs interested in setting up their own business. Under the EDP, several topics would be covered like step by step approach of starting a micro/small enterprise, entrepreneurial qualities & characteristics, communication skills, role and support of Government agencies like DIC & R&D Institutions, state and central government schemes for MSMEs, business opportunity identification, registrations & licenses , project report preparation, sales and marketing management, financial management, etc.
The Confederation of All India Traders (CAIT) in a communication sent to Prime Minister Narendra Modi has urged for a National Trade Policy for Retail Trade and a separate ministry for Internal Trade.
It has also suggested that Foreign Trade should be transferred to Ministry of External Affairs and Ministry of Commerce should be designated to look after and monitor domestic trade.
The CAIT has also suggested that MUDRA should be made as an independent regulator since loans under Mudra are yet to reach actual beneficiary.
The allotment of land for industries, which was till recently mired in uncertainty due to the 99-year lease proposal, is happening much faster after the government’s decision to give land on outright sale basis.
Talking to KNN, the Vice President of Andhra Pradesh Chambers Of Commerce and Industry Federation (APCCIF), Sambhasiva Rao said that, "As an MSME entrepreneur, you require the money to take the land, for taking the land on lease basis;
A Vibrant Ceramics summit is being organized at the Sabarmati river front in Ahmedabad from December 16-18, 2016 to popularize the ceramic sector of India which is amongst the top 10 global producers and consumers of ceramic tiles.
Together with the support of Government of Gujarat and jointly with Morbi business associations, Octagon Communications and Global Network are organizing Vibrant Ceramics 2016.
Jharkhand Chief Minister Raghubar Das today said the state will impart skill training to at least 20 lakh youth in the next five years and efforts are on to set up 500 skill training centres to achieve the target. The centres would train students and the unemployed among others and priority would be given to Schedule Tribe and Schedule Caste youth, an official release said quoting Das at a meeting here.
The West Bengal government is planning to formulate an action plan for fostering start ups in the State.
“By 2020, we aim to make West Bengal one of the top three States in IT and IT-enabled services,” the state’s newly-appointed IT Minister Bratya Basu said in an interactive session with the National Association of Software and Service Companies (NASSCOM) here on Wednesday.
Nasscom is the representative body of IT industries in India.
He called upon industry to join the government to help dispel the negative perception that the state suffers from.
India and Mexico has stressed upon the necessity of developing a greater connectivity between the two countries and encouraging cooperation in the infrastructure sector, among small and medium enterprises (SMEs), in pharmaceutical products, in energy, in the automobile sector, in Information and Communication Technology, in agriculture, in food processing and in other related sectors.
This was stated by Enrique Peña Nieto, President of the United Mexican States and Narendra Modi, Prime Minister of India, in a joint statement in Mexico.
India and Qatar today signed seven agreements, including one on finance intelligence to check money laundering and terrorism financing and another to woo foreign investment in the infrastructure sector from the gas-rich Gulf state.
Cooperation and investment in areas of skill development and education, health, tourism and sports between the two countries were the other agreements signed by Indian and Qatar officials in the presence of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Emir Sheikh Tamim Bin Hamad Al Thani.
India and Singapore on Friday held the first dialogue between their Defence Ministers as they agreed to enhance the scale and complexity of existing bilateral military interaction, at a time when freedom of navigation in international waterways has emerged as a major concern.
The first Defence Ministers’ Dialogue between Manohar Parrikar and his Singaporean counterpart Ng Eng Hen marked raising of bilateral defence cooperation to the highest level.
“We had very detailed discussions. We have agreed on expanding the interaction between the armed forces and defence R&D and industry participation,” Parrikar told reporters after the dialogue.
According to the FISME Factor, about 63 percent of Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs) think that the Modi govt. has fulfilled its expectations while 25 percent think otherwise whereas 12 percent can’t say anything about this. 
Digital transformation is the key growth driver for SMEs as they work towards scaling their business. In fact, most SMEs are witnessing a paradigm shift in their business models with the usage of simple and cost-effective digital technologies.Market trends and the success of early adoptershave emphasized that digital technology is more of a necessity than a choice for SMEs.
My driver on a recent longish Uber ride was a 25-year old management graduate from one of the well-known Bschools. Lets call him Alex.
He had been driving for Uber for the last six months after he quit his job with a multinational firm that recruited him from the campus. He needed that time to make his business plan, do some market research and work on a few tie-ups.
'Change is the only constant thing in this world' - quite an oxymoron, isn't it? I remember those days back in the eighties when the unit packs or sachets as they are commonly known as created ripples in the Indian market. It was a change in how people perceived products. It was a change in how people purchased things. It marked a sea change in how people used products. The ever swelling middle class of the country suddenly started finding FMCG brands affordable.
The bicycle industry in Ludhiana, which mostly consists of the micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs), has asked the state government not to promote Chinese industry in Ludhiana.
The reaction came after the Deputy Chief Minister Sukhbir Singh Badal Sunday met the Chinese Bicycle Association (CBA) in Shanghai and invited them to invest in Ludhiana, where, he said 300 acres of land has been set aside for manufacturing high-end bicycles.
Pune-based sports goods retailer Shaival Gandhi believes in spending on digital advertising rather than offering deep discounts. "At the end of the day, 'jo dikhta hai, who bikta hai' (products which are visible, sell well)," said Gandhi, founder-director of Pace Sports and Entertainment, who incurs a cost of 10-15 per cent on his margin for online promotion. Of late, marketplaces have shifted focus to generating ad revenues from big brands which can fund sustained digital campaigns.
Twenty-six-year-old Saniya Lone had many easier career options. But she rather made a more difficult choice and the tryst with entrepreneurial success for the hijab-clad management graduate turned out to be a cake walk, literally.
“ When you cease to dream you cease to live ”
