With a clear focus on promoting the micro, small and medium enterprises in a bid to reach the target of USD 2 trillion exports by 2030, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman has announced a host of sops for the sector including setting up of e-commerce export hubs.

Announcing the Union Budget 2024, the minister said, “This budget provides special attention to MSMEs and manufacturing, particularly labour-intensive manufacturing. We have formulated a package covering financing, regulatory changes and technology support for MSMEs to help them grow and also compete globally, as mentioned in the interim budget.”

The Data Dissemination Portal of the Directorate General of Commercial Intelligence and Statistics (DGCIS) recently revealed that the share of exports of MSME-specified products in India’s total exports recovered in the financial year 2023-24 after three years of decline.

According to the data, MSME-related products accounted for 45.73 per cent of all Indian exports in FY2024. The share had previously fallen from 49.73 per cent in FY 2020 to 49.35 per cent in FY 2021, 45.03 per cent in FY22, and 43.59 per cent in FY 2023. As of May 2024, the share stood at 45.79 per cent.

“To enable MSMEs and traditional artisans to sell their products in international markets, e-commerce export hubs will be set up in public private-partnership (PPP) mode. These hubs, under a seamless regulatory and logistic framework, will facilitate trade and export related services under one roof,” Sitharaman said.

Meanwhile, SIDBI will also open new branches to expand its reach to serve all major MSME clusters within 3 years and provide direct credit to them. “With the opening of 24 such branches this year, the service coverage will expand to 168 out of 242 major clusters,” Sitharaman said.

The Finance Ministry has also decided to facilitate development of investment-ready “plug and play” industrial parks with complete infrastructure in or near 100 cities, in partnership with the states and private sector, by better using town planning schemes.

“Twelve industrial parks under the National Industrial Corridor Development Programme also will be sanctioned,” she added.