As many as 61 deals have been signed for undisclosed sums among the state and world MSMEs in Gwalior, despite the threat of legal issues cropping up, sloppy rules and truant politicians dogging the buyer-seller meet of medium and small scale manufacturing units from various parts of the world. While on one hand, the foreign participants demanded clear policy to boost foreign trade, on the other local MSMEs raised issues of export-import guidelines in foreign countries.
The MSME meet, ‘MP Expotech-III’, organised by the Madhya Pradesh Laghu Udyog Nigam (MPLUN), reportedly fetched lukewarm response. “Last year, we organised a similar meet in Indore which fetched Rs 90 crore deals for MSMEs of the state, this year we are expecting more,” Chief General Manager MPLUN BM Singh said.
As many as 75 delegates from various countries in Asia, Africa and Europe, the US and CIS participated in MP Expotech-III in Gwalior and closed a few deals in herbal, textile, stone, building material, steel and pharmaceutical sectors.
“I want to arrange a deal in medical equipment with Madhya Pradesh but neither MPLUN nor CII has clear answers as to how we can proceed,”secretary general of Kampala City Trader’s Association Godfrey Ssali said.
Registration of products, particularly pharmaceutical products, in which MSMEs of the state lead in various fields, restricted Burkina Faso embassy to go ahead to have a closer look into business deal. “We want to explore more business opportunities in Madhya Pradesh but there is no easier way,” Idriss Raoua Ouderaogo said.
Similarly, Qari Abdul Azim, promoter of an Afghanistan-based company Mustafa Sakeb Limited, said, “Afghanistan is looking for investment and I understand from various industry people here that Madhya Pradesh can make investment in all sectors but the organisers must have considered our religious issues too. There was no space for our delegation for “Namaz” during the three-day show. And why can’t Madhya Pradesh open its state branch in Kabul to explore investment opportunities for MSMEs?”
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A wine manufacturer from Titari village (near Ratlam) rural areas Jitendra Patidar said, “A Vietnam-based company wants to seal a deal of importing 50,000 litres of wine but I don’t have any idea about freight, container capacity and none was there to tell me in the expo.”
Peter Nguyen also endorsed his problem and said, “I don’t know how to go ahead with the deal.”
The event was third in its series organised to bring MSMEs of the world closer. If state agency MPLUN is given more teeth to define guidelines, the MSMEs might have better options. “A lot depends upon the Centre to choose partners, but we will pursue industry issues aggressively and hope the meet will fetch more results for industries as they have entered into dialogues some have reached advance stages of their business deals and a lot of closed deals,” BM Singh said.