MSME exporters demand for a grievance redressal mechanism amidst their falling shares

The Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises have asked for an ‘empowered’ grievance resolution system and have blamed the lack of coordination among the central ministries to be one of the factors for the fall in their share of exports. The official data showed that the share of MSME exports has declined to 45 per cent this financial year, compared to 49.35 per cent in the previous fiscal, despite the overall export hitting a record high at $420 billion. The Indian MSMEs export mostly to the United States, Germany and China.

The report quoted the statement from Federation of Indian Micro and Small Enterprises (FISME). It said, “Whether it is policy decisions such as profiling of risky exporters which continue to harass a large number of exporters or retrieving a shipment stuck at a foreign port requiring coordination of central ministries there is no system that small exporters can reach out to for timely resolution of their grievances.”

The MSME industry body submitted the memorandum to Minister of Commerce and Industry Piyush Goyal at a recent Board of Trade meeting. The federation said, “In a memorandum submitted to the minister during the meeting, FISME demanded an empowered grievance redressal mechanism, with a dashboard, to capture and see what kind of problems exporters face both internally and externally and find a way to resolve them.”

The meeting was called by the minister on September 13,2022, amidst slacking export growth in India. Exports declined subsequently in August despite easing of trade deficit in August,2022, to $28.7 billion from a record high of $30 billion in July, the Mint report mentioned. The industry body noted that traders move to Dubai, Hong Kong and Singapore for third party trading due to a constrained environment in India despite its high potential.

FISME’s president Prashant Patel informed that the banks refused credit disbursal in some cases citing inconsistency in the shipping documents when the supply of ships and containers were cut short during the peak of covid-19. “The banks did not understand the volume of Dubai port and the huge upheaval in shipping during the period,” he said. The industry body has also proposed setting up a working group to identify and ease the regulations and policy for third party trading. Furthermore, they recommended a revamp of EXIM bank to focus on MSMEs.

Source: Financial Express