FISME Holds Roundtable With Think-tanks On Impact of Reciprocal Tariff On Indian MSMEs

New Delhi, Mar 31 (KNN) To assess the likely impact of President Trump’s trade measures especially the reciprocal tariff on Indian MSMEs, Federation of Indian Micro and Small & Medium Enterprises (FISME) convened a roundtable with India’s top economists.

India's exports to the U.S. have shown a consistent upward trend and touched $77.5 billion in FY24. Indian MSMEs account for almost half of India’s exports and have dominant position in exports to US in Textiles and Apparels, Leather, Light Engineering and Auto components, Pharmaceuticals, Processed Food and Gems and Jewelry.

Researchers and economists who deliberated the various scenario included Abhijit Das-  Former Director of Center for WTO Studies, Ajay Shrivastav from GTRI, Dr. Arpita Mukherjee from ICRIER, Dr. Jayant Dasgupta Former Ambassador of India at WTO, Tariffs and Trade  Expert  Arun Goyal,  Formal trade negotiator Atul Kaushik, Anuradha R.C.- Trade Law expert, Trade and  Commerce expert Pranav Kumar and  Debjit Ghosh from KPMG.

Experts analyzed the likely reciprocal tariff on MSME dominant sectors and how much leeway India had to negotiate with US.

The prospects of a comprehensive bilateral trade agreement with US was also discussed in length.  The group members also deliberated on trade-off between opting for tariff cuts or a comprehensive agreement with US.

Convenor of ‘Friends of MSMEs in Parliament’ and former Member of Parliament from Meerut Rajendra Agrawal jointly presided over the session with President FISME Sandeep Kishore Jain. The discussion was moderated by FISME Secretary General Anil Bhardwaj. FISME Policy Committee Chairman Dinesh Singha and Treasurer C.S. Goel with senior officials of FISME participated in the closed group discussions.  

FISME is to share the insights with India’s negotiating teams.

While the formal media briefing is not shared by FISME, a public discussion is programmed after April 2, post US announcement on tariff measures.   

(KNN Bureau)