Large firms must take onus to handhold MSMEs: Goyal

'We must also try to make it easier to operate for small companies,' Goyal said

Large companies should take responsibility to handhold MSMEs, and help them adapt best practices and integrate them into the supply chain ecosystem, commerce and industry minister Piyush Goyal said here on Monday.

Goyal said that MSMEs (micro, small and medium enterprises) flourish around a larger unit or anchor.

Citing an example, he said, as Apple's manufacturing plant comes up, thousands of MSME units flourish in the ecosystem as mini value chain suppliers to Apple.

He said large companies must be sensitized to handhold MSMEs associated with them.

"We must also try to make it easier to operate for small companies, eliminate unnecessary paperwork, make custom processes simpler, and use technology to ease and simplify processes," he said at the fourth Plenary Session of B20 India Inception Meeting on Building Resilient Global Value Chains, organised by CII.

He pointed out that Singapore has been playing an important role as a trading hub and suggested that a study can be done to figure out what Singapore has been doing right and based on this a basic framework can be created for supporting MSMEs.

It may involve infrastructure development, addressing challenges of logistics, he added.

On integrating India with global value chains, Goyal said if "we do not harmonise our value chains with the rest of the world, or if we do not create logistics which are easier and faster, it would be difficult for international companies to get India into its value chain".

To become a trusted and resilient partner in global value chains, the government is also focusing on creating an enabling ecosystem that is simpler, faster and promotes ease of doing business, he said.

He said the focus of the government is on trying to make our country accept quality as the most important factor in the success story of India.

India is in dialogue with some of the larger companies of UAE to leverage the best out of the free trade agreement signed between the two countries, he added.

Earlier in the day, the minister asked businesses to adopt a sustainable and green approach in business practices.

He asked them to use the forum of B20 along with G20 to look at how we can collectively work towards a sustainable and equitable future agenda.