Thursday, October 13, 2016

Imposing clamp on cheaper imports will affect SMEs, says Commerce Minister

Chennai:
Union Commerce Minister Nirmala Seetharaman said that imposing clamp on cheaper imports would affect the small and medium enterprises (SMEs) as they are instrumental in creating jobs silently.

Speaking at an event organised by Chennai International Centre, the Union minister said it is in a dharam sankat on whether to act against cheaper imports to safeguard the Indian manufacturers or by putting to risk the interests of small and medium enterprises who are dependent on it.

Speaking at a panel discussion which was moderated by Preetha Reddy of Apollo Hospital here, Seetharaman said that cheap import of raw materials is helping the SMEs who are instrumental in providing good number of employment.

On one end, a section of industry is affected by the cheaper imports resulting in bad loans and non performing assets on the banks and on other end it is helping SMEs competing in the global market, she said.

On rubber industry in South India being hit by cheaper imports, she said the imported rubber's quality does not measure to the quality of rubber produced in India.

But the issue is India does not have standards in many sectors. It is a complex matrix, she said.

To a query on whether the government will initiate action against dumping of goods by China, Finance Minister is engaging with various structures which are concerned with inverted duty structure.

The minister also said that the country is hoping to attain eight per cent growth with the help of Jan Dhan scheme, Aadhaar being seeded into direct benefit scheme and mobile connectivity.

She said the schemes have cut down on big ticket corruption while citing the example of Harry ana which brought to light large number of fake ration cards.

She said one crore Indians surrendered their LPG subsidy and these subsidies which were returned are being used to provide gas cylinders to women living below poverty line.

Hailing Goods and Service Tax, she said every thing is digitised under GST and it will usher in 2.5 billion transactions on one single platform every month without any human interference. She said once GST comes into being it will boost the growth by 1.5pc.

She also said the government is planning to boost growth through possible funding of infrastructure like building roads and waterways.

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