West Bengal emerges on top for job generation in SMEs: ASSOCHAM

With over 43,000 jobs generated in the small and medium enterprises (SMEs) sector between April 2011 and up to February 15, 2012, West Bengal has emerged as a front-runner state to facilitate growth in the SMEs sector, apex industry body ASSOCHAM said today.

Utilizing the margin subsidy money worth Rs 52.49 crore, the state of West Bengal assisted about 5,290 SME units across the state, according to a state-wise analysis of number of SMEs assisted, margin money utilized and estimated employment generation during the aforesaid period carried out by The Associated Chambers of Commerce and Industry of India (ASSOCHAM).

“Over 3.25 lakh jobs were generated in the SME sector by providing assistance to a total of 35,607 SME units across India utilizing margin money subsidy worth about Rs 700 crore during the 11 months period between April 2011 and February 15, 2012,” said Mr D.S. Rawat, national secretary general of ASSOCHAM while releasing the findings of the chamber’s analysis.

“The SME sector accounts for about 45 per cent of India’s manufacturing output and 40 per cent of the total exports of the country,” said Mr Rawat. “Besides, the sector is estimated to employ about 59 million persons in over 26 million units which produce over 6,000 products ranging from traditional to high-techs items.”

Andhra Pradesh emerged the second leading state by generating about 33,115 job opportunities and assisted about 1,459 SME units utilizing about Rs 48.9 crore of the margin money subsidy, highlights the ASSOCHAM study.

Assisting about 3,205 units, Uttar Pradesh ranked third with 30,880 jobs generated in the SMEs sector with the state government utilizing worth over Rs 107 crore of the margin money subsidy, highlights the ASSOCHAM study.

Tamil Nadu emerged as the fourth leading state by creating about 27,138 jobs and assisted about 1,827 SME units utilizing margin money subsidy of over Rs 44.6 crore during the aforesaid period.
The state of Odisha ranked fifth as about 21,010 employment opportunities were created in the SME sector as 2,101 SMEs were assisted by the state utilizing the margin money subsidy worth over Rs 39 crore.

Assam assisted about 2,234 SME units and created about 17,944 jobs utilizing about Rs 24 crore of margin money subsidy.  About 15,442 jobs were created in SME sector by providing assistance to about 1,347 units in Karnataka utilizing the margin money subsidy worth over Rs 27 crore.

About 15,423 jobs were created in the SME industry of Bihar as the state government assisted about 2,442 units utilizing over Rs 50 crore of margin money subsidy. Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh were other leading states in this regard.

National SME 100 AWARDS announced at India SME FORUM

Mumbai:  Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) play a vital role for the growth of Indian economy by contributing 45% of industrial output, 40% of exports and employing millions of people across industries.

However, in order to sustain their growth and contribution to the nation, they need to be supported and equipped with the right amount of knowledge on marketing, funding, tax management, rating, logistics, IT and people management. The India SME Forum a not for profit initiative, has launched a 12-city free knowledge forum series to groom aspiring and eligible SMEs on various business aspects and enable them to elevate their business to the next level. The objectives of the forum are to foster the development of a flourishing entrepreneurial culture and a competitive SMEs sector to support economic development.

The forum has K V Srinivasan CEO of Reliance Commercial Finance, Mr Lakshman Gullugothu, CEO of BSE SME Exchange, Mr Parag Patki, CEO of SME Rating Agency of India and Mr V K Agarwal, President of FISME on its Jury board amongst other luminaries.

The Forum is supported by Reliance Commercial Finance, the Federation of Indian Small and Medium Enterprises, the lending arm of Reliance Capital Ltd, Bloomberg UTV, Go Airlines, SDRC, Mahindra & Mahindra and other associates.

The core strategies put in place by the Forum for bringing about a greater role of SME's in India's economic development includes Listening, Sharing and Advocating for a Pro-Business Environment and Identifying, Enabling and Seeding Innovative Start-ups and Recognising, Grooming and Supporting, Promising SMEs. The first round of the knowledge forums will be held in Jaipur, Gurgaon, Chandigarh, Delhi, Kolkata, Pune, Chennai, Kochi, Bengaluru, Surat, Indore & Mumbai starting from June 26 to September 18, 2012.
In line with the strategy to groom promising SMEs, the India SME 100 ranking will act as catalyst to identify such SMEs and recognise them for eventually becoming large global-oriented companies.

The awards also hope to inspire willing and able SMEs that have the potential to be world-class enterprises and offer them the platform to promote themselves to investors and partners to sustain growth. The Awards are aimed at:

- Celebrating India's top performing SMEs
- Creating greater awareness of the importance of SME development
- Creating a national motivational psyche in the nation's social and business community
- Encouraging SME role models to share their best practices in management
- Marketing the capabilities of the winning SMEs to regional and global investors
- Providing opportunities for SMEs to network and raise capital
- Identifying a continuous and sustainable pipeline of SMEs for a potential secondary listing of SMEs (IPO) that can attract equity capital for growth
- Providing development path for SMEs to graduate
- Supporting a culture of transparency, corporate governance and best practice sharing.
Nominations from all over India from SMEs will be invited till 15th August 2012 and winners will be shortlisted after a stringent selection process. The results for 2012 will be announced in Mumbai on October 6, 2012.

"The Awards which are being awarded not only for the top 100 performers in the SME segment, but also to the 20 most innovative, 20 most people oriented, 20 most export oriented and also to CSR aware organizations, shall definitely spur a new movement amongst the SMEs, to follow the footsteps of the winners and create a sustainable mechanism to reward and recognize them." said Mr V K Agarwal, President of FISME.

"We understand the importance of SMEs and endeavour to enable them to expand their business by providing tailor-made loans. By partnering with an initiative such as this, we are happy to extend our philosophy beyond financial solutions." said Mr. K. V. Srinivasan, CEO, Reliance Commercial Finance.

"The India SME Forum has been created with the mission to foster development of a flourishing entrepreneurial culture and a competitive SME sector to support economic development. We want to encourage knowledge sharing and want to recognize India's top performing SMEs", said Lakshman Gugullothu, CEO, BSE SME Exchange.

SMEs term RBI's monetary policy ‘unjustified’

SMEs demand immediate interest rate cut ranging b/w 100-150 basis pts.

A whopping 93 per cent of industries in the SME sector opine that the Reserve Bank of India’s (RBI) decision to keep the interest rate unchanged was completely out of line, according to a quick poll conducted by the apex industry body ASSOCHAM.

The Associated Chambers of Commerce and Industry of India (ASSOCHAM) conducted a telephonic interview with about 100 small and medium enterprises (SMEs) across India during the last fortnight to ascertain their views on RBI’s decision of not to change the interest rates in its mid-quarter monetary policy review on June 18.

Besides, about 86 per cent of the respondents said that high rate of interests is having a negative impact on their business as their organizations droop under the burden of ever-rising lending rates and rest of them said this move will not impact their trade much as they are not heavily dependent upon bank finances, highlights the survey conducted by the ASSOCHAM Research Bureau (ARB).

“The SME sector had already been grappling with macro-economic slowdown together with global uncertainty and rising interest rates put an extra burden on these small capital organizations which are heavily dependent upon the banks for their finance requirements,” said D.S. Rawat, secretary general of ASSOCHAM while releasing the findings of the survey.

The ASSOCHAM representatives also tried to ascertain the impact of high costs of borrowing on the firms’ business to which about 43 per cent respondents said their cost of credit had increased by about 5-10 per cent while about 32 per cent respondents said their cost of credit soared by up to five per cent. While about 18 per cent did not respond, of the remaining about three per cent said their cost of credit has increased by about 10-15 per cent and four per cent respondents said cost of credit increased by over 15 per cent.

ASSOCHAM also sought the firms’ views on their investment decisions considering the decelerating industrial performance and drying investments to which about 79 per cent of respondents said their investment plans had been adversely impacted by RBI’s current move.
Apart from this, about half of the overall respondents also reckoned that investments had declined by about 5-10 per cent, while 21 per cent did not respond to this about 11 per cent said investments declined by about 10-15 per cent and an equal number of respondents said it had declined by up to five per cent. A meager seven per cent respondents felt that investments had declined by over 15 per cent.

ASSOCHAM sought the feedback of the SME industry as to how much they wanted the RBI to interest rates to help revive the growth of the industry. About 39 per cent of respondents reckoned that the apex bank should immediately cut down the interest rates by 150 basis points, while about 36 per cent said the interest rates should be brought down by 100 basis points.
According to ASSOCHAM, there are about 31.1 million MSMEs across India employing over 73 million people and produce over 6,000 different products. Besides, the sector contributes about 40 per cent of India’s gross exports and 45 per cent of country’s manufacturing output.

Auto Components and Machine Tools Engineering Exhibition in Chennai from June 14

Noida: The Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) in the interlinked and interdependent sectors of machine tools and auto components are poised to soar higher with the introduction of neo and cutting-edge technologies at the upcoming Auto Components and Machine Tools Engineering Exhibition (ACMEE) 2012 for the Indian markets.

The biennial event is scheduled to hit the ground in Chennai on 14th June, 2012 till 18th June, 2012, with its 10th edition of International Machine Tools & Auto Components Exhibition.

IndiaMART.com, India's largest B2B marketplace, has joined hands with the organisers Ambattur Industrial Estate Manufacturers Association (AIEMA) & AIEMA Technology Centre (Chennai) for this renowned trade show. As the title sponsor, IndiaMART.com moves an inch closer to realising its aim to create synergies between buyers and suppliers across sectors, and also bring diverse product information and technological innovations closer to them for their business growth.

Over 440 companies, including more than 125 overseas exhibitors, will display a plethora of technologically advanced products for the domain buyers at Chennai Trade & Convention Centre (Chennai). The five day fiesta of technology and innovation is also expected to receive a staggering foot fall crossing 25,000 this year.
Invited as the guest of honour at this coveted trade exposition, Brijesh Agrawal, COO, IndiaMART.com, said, "Technology is the backbone of the machine tools and auto components sectors. When used aptly, it can bring exponential growth for these sectors. Moreover, it can help the SMEs in these sectors to satiate the ever growing demand effectively. We are honoured to associate with ACMEE 2012, which we believe will prove to be a perfect platform for companies in these sectors to be, collaborate and gain new understandings of the business and technologies alike."

ACMEE 2012 will also facilitate duty free import and display of exhibits by participants from abroad subject to normal customs rules and regulations. This will further encourage the exhibitors to show more products and innovations made in automobile and engineering industries. Already, participants from more than 25 significant nations such as USA, UK, Germany, Russia, France, Australia, Singapore, India, Canada, China, among others will showcase their expertise in the field of manufacturing technology. Taiwan and Korea will hold their exclusive pavilions at the venue showcasing their array of products and services.