Union Minister for Railways Suresh Prabhu stressed that the WTO and individual countries should have a fair agreement on export standards and that there should be no barriers in market accessibility for developing and underdeveloped nations. The minister was speaking at the International Dialogues and Conference on Indian and Sustainability Standards in Delhi on Wednesday (18 November).
Prabhu said that low cost manufacturing of all products should be done in a sustainable way. He also said that the efficacy of global supply chain is equal to the enhancement of the Small and Medium Enterprises (SME's).
Strongly advocating the employment issues in the SME sectors, Prabhu said that the social dimension issue of a developing economy is the employment of people in the SME and MSME sector that needs to be addressed by big enterprises who source their manufacturing from these sectors. Citing example of global sports goods and apparel maker Nike, the minister said that the big multi-nationals like Nike and others benefit from the SME sector as the contract manufacture from them. And they should set standards for their sustainable growth and employability.
Vindicating his stand, Union MSME Minister Kalraj Mishra who inaugurated the conference said that the proposed MSME policy is in the process of taking views and comments of different ministries before being finalised.
"Reactions and feedbacks have come from the public. We will take comments and feedbacks from certain ministries before we finalise the policy," Mishra said on Sunday at the annual session of MCC Chamber of Commerce and Industry.
Mishra said that it will soon go before Cabinet if necessary.
Speaking about various steps taken by the government on promoting MSME sector, he said there is a huge scope in West Bengal and the Centre will support in promoting it.
Meanwhile, state Finance minister Amit Mitra said there is phenomenal growth of MSME sector in the state and various steps have been taken to spur the growth further.
The India Sustainability Standards - International Dialogue & Conference 2015 has been organized by Centre of Responsible Business.
