Mint Road to refer GJEPC to Ganguly Committee on SMEs

In a bid to meet funding requirements of small and medium enterprises (SMEs), Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has decided to refer Gem and Jewellery Export Promotion Council (GJEPC) to Ganguly Committee, set up to look into SMEs.

GJEPC urged RBI and the commercial banks to further revamp the banking and credit norms for the jewellery sector to enable it to cross $16 million in exports by 2007.

At the Vision 2007 conference addressing banker and exporters, Sanjay Kothari, chairman GJEPC said that SMEs must be encouraged.

His view was endorsed by K J Udeshi, deputy governor RBI. He said, " More banks should lend to SMEs to enable them to expand and upgrade their technology."

She added, banks are currently not fully equipped to support SMEs. "Banks should stop associating SMEs with high risk and there should be a focused recognition of clusters" she said.

Udeshi assured that the cause of the gem and jewellery sector would be taken up with the committee on SMEs under the chairmanship of A S Ganguly, director central board of RBI.

Speaking about project financing, Kothari pointed out, project finance interest rates that currently stand at 12-13 per cent should be reduced and brought at par with external credit rates.

He appealed to RBI to bring uniformity in interest rates and other lending charges. In response, Udeshi said that the RBI had extricated itself from micro regulation.