Minister of State for External Affairs General VK Singh, addressed the 7th Global Economic Summit in Mumbai on Friday and focused on the Global Value Chains (GVC).
"India has failed to become a major player in the Global Value Chains despite its expertise in producing so many goods, like petroleum products, cotton, pharmaceuticals, gems and jewellery, and its share is less than five percent of the global GVC market".
Giving the example of Philippines, he explained, "Philippines processes 200 tonnes of pineapple and exports it all and then immediately plants another crop after that. It then produces beautiful shirts out of those yarns. Almost the same quantities of pineapples are grown in the North Eastern India, but we are not able to process more than 15 percent of it. This can be resolved through MSMEs, as they require less capital to set up and are more labour intensive leading to more job creation".
Explaining the steps taken by the government in this sector he said, "MSMEs can be easily diffused all over and the government is taking all steps to smoothen the road for the entrepreneurs, like cutting down the corporate tax rates across the spectrum and formulating new rules and regulations."
"We have signed MoUs with 18 countries for development of MSMEs; the National Small Industries Corporation of India has signed 34 MoU's with its counterpart organizations in various countries for cooperation in this field," he added.