Export mission to end woes of MSMEs: DGFT

Govt mulling system to raise collateral-free export credit

- Mukesh Jagota

The bulk of allocation for the Export Promotion Mission (EPM) announced in the Budget will be used for designing schemes for addressing export credit requirements of micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs) and promoting the use of alternate financing instruments like factoring.

"The allocation for the mission for this year has been kept at ₹2,250 crore, of which ₹200 crore is for Market Access Initiative (MAI) and ₹50 crore for lab-grown diamonds. The rest of the amount is for designing schemes around export credit, cross border factoring and support to MSMEs to tackle non-tariff barriers," director general of foreign trade Santosh Kumar Sarangi said.

The schemes will be designed by the ministry of finance and the ministry of commerce. Earlier the government had a scheme for interest subsidy for export credit that came to an end on December 31, 2024. "The format of assistance to exporters will change. It will not necessarily be in the form of interest subvention," he said.