Budget's much-needed leg-up for small units: CRISIL SME Tracker

Union Budget 2020-21 has attempted to address a fundamental concern of micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs) — their competitiveness.
 
The announcement on enabling easier debt in the form of quasi-equity augurs well for the competitiveness of these units, whose contribution to exports is over 45 per cent.
 
An evaluation of 13,000 MSMEs using the CRISIL Quantix database shows that working capital comprises over half of their need for debt.
 
In this context, the push given to the Trade Receivables Discounting System (TReDS) platform — the institutional mechanism that facilitates financing of MSMEs’ receivables — is a