Collection Of MSME Trade Data Begins

New Delhi, Nov 27 (KNN) The government has started the process to collect the country-wise and commodity-wise trade done by micro, small and medium enterprises (MSME), reported ET.

This will provide a real time data of their exports and imports. The MSME Ministry ideates to get a comprehensive data of exports done by such firms as against broad data.

Approximately 25 million MSMEs are registered on the Udyam portal, of which around 193,000 are engaged in exports at present.

“There is a linkage of the Udyam portal with ICEGATE but that is now being augmented because we want more granular data country-wise and commodity-wise as we get only broad export figures right now,” an official aware of the development told ET.

Sharing insights on the matter, Anil Bhardwaj, Secretary General, Federation of Indian Micro and Small & Medium Enterprises (FISME), said that product-wise data will help industry gain concessions in India's free trade agreement negotiations and help improve its market access, policy making and competitiveness.

This assumes significance as many of India's FTAs have separate chapters on MSMEs. “We will get state and cluster-wise data, which would also help formulate export promotion schemes,” Bhardwaj said. 

Currently, the information on exports and imports is provided by the Directorate General of Commercial Intelligence and Statistics (DGCI&S) in which specific data on MSME sector is not available.

(KNN Bureau)