The government on Tuesday said it has set up a National Start-up Advisory Council under commerce and industry minister Piyush Goyal to recommend measures to build a strong ecosystem to promote budding entrepreneurs, ease access to capital, incentivise investments and keep control of start-ups with original promoters. Although the policy recommendations will come in due course, one of the objectives of the panel-to provide inputs on keeping control of start-ups with original promoters-has raised eyebrows. Interestingly, in 2018, a task force on e-commerce under then commerce secretary Rita Teaotia had drawn criticism for suggesting necessary policy changes to enable founders of domestic e-commerce companies to retain control even if their share-holding was small. Subsequently, the draft e-commerce policy in 2019 junked the proposal, as many pointed out that foreign investors would shy away from investing in e-commerce start-ups if any such move was implemented. In a statement on Tuesday, the commerce and industry ministry said the council will suggest steps to facilitate public organisations to foster innovation, promote creation, protection and commercialisation of intellectual property rights, make it easier to start, operate, grow and exit businesses by reducing regulatory compliances and costs.

The National Association of Software and Services Companies have entered into a Memorandum of Understanding with Small Industries Development Bank of India to work together for entrepreneurship growth and development of MSME in the Information and Communication Technology (ICT) sector in the country. As part of the MOU, both the parties will aim to coordinate the synergies in their activities to achieve this objective, NASSCOM said in a statement today.

The initiative to benefit small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in the information technology (IT) space in Andhra Pradesh, which was introduced as part of the state’s IT&C 2010-2015 policy, has failed to gain momentum among SMEs in the state. The initiative — which was to unbundle the big-ticket government IT projects that are coming to the state across hardware, software and system integration (SI) verticals and divide those into smaller projects to benefit SMEs — is facing hurdles in its implementation.

If the initial data is anything to go by, the recently-launched segment for small and medium enterprises (SMEs) is facing several headwinds. Nearly a month after it was formally launched by BSE, only a handful of trades are being registered everyday. Also, no new company has listed itself after the exchanges launched the segment last month.Currently, BSE is the only exchange that has a company — BCB Finance — listed on its SME platform. In the first 16 days of trading, the counter saw more than 10 trades only on four occasions. On March 13, when the company made its debut on BSE, 52 trades were struck with the total turnover at R71.16 lakh. The next day, only two trades were registered.

Only 5.2 per cent of respondents in a survey of SMEs in the rubber and rubber products conducted by IndiaMART Knowledge Services revealed that they planned to invest in computers. This was so despite the fact that a large majority – 71.3 per cent – revealed that they planned to increase their production capacity. Another 16.5 per cent said they were looking at increasing their employee base, but only 6.9 per cent of the SMEs said they would be opening new offices.

Lok Sabha today passed a bill to regulate the factoring business and help the micro, small and medium enterprises in dealing with liquidity problems. The Regulation of Factors (Assignment of Receivables) Bill 2011, which was passed by voice vote, was introduced in the House by Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee during the last Budget Session. "The bill is applicable to all types of industry whether it is small, medium or big", Minister of State for Finance Namo Narayan Meena said, winding up the discussion on the bill.

The credit potential for Micro, Small and Medium Enterprise (MSMEs) sector in the state of Tamil Nadu is estimated at Rs 14,032.35 crore in 2012-13, according to the National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (Nabard). The ground level credit (GLC) flow to this sector in the state has over the years shown steady growth, which is evident from the fact that the GLC was Rs 8,260.98 crore in 2008-09, increasing to Rs 9,437.08 crore in 2009-10 and further to Rs 10,421.84 crore in 2010-11. A target of Rs 12,582.48 crore has been set for 2011-12, according to Nabard. Tamil Nadu houses more MSMEs than any other state in the country, accounting for 15.07 per cent of the national total. The sector has the potential to generate substantial employment opportunities.

Small and medium enterprises have huge listing potential once the BSE SME Exchange commences operations, the CEO of the first SME-focused exchange in the country, Lakshman Gugulothu, today said. "The Indian small and medium enterprise (SME) sector will have a huge listing potential in the coming years," the BSE SME Exchange CEO said during a seminar on 'Raising of Equity Capital and Listing of SMEs on BSE SME Exchange', which was organised by the PHD Chamber and BSE here. Gugulothu said the BSE has undertaken various activities to create awareness about the likely benefits for SMEs on listing.

The government's clarification that foreign retailers will have to source 30% of their goods from micro and small enterprises in India has come as a relief for the sector, but many of the eligible businesses feel they may not be in a position to exploit the opportunity. The Cabinet had last week allowed 51% foreign direct investment in multi-brand retail and raised the limit for single brand retail from 51% to 100%. "A big problem we face while servicing existing large retailers in the country is related to payments, as big businesses tend to make suppliers wait," said Ramand Gupta, president, Federation of Delhi Small Industries Association.

Wouldn’t it be nice if chief executive officers of small and medium enterprises (SMEs) could bring their employees closer to their prospects, customers and other companies that matter to their business, making everyone more efficient and enabling them to see for themselves improvements such as rising efficiency and return on investment? Wapr, a business-to-business (B2B) collaboration platform created by Core Software, a Hyderabad-based web development outsourcing company, enables just that. Wapr gives SMEs a platform that helps keep everyone up-to-date in real-time.

The National Stock Exchange (NSE) will launch its Small and Medium Enterprises (SME) exchange in November, says a PTI report. “We have got final approval from the SEBI. We will launch the platform this month,” NSE vice president K. Hari said. He was speaking with reporters on the sidelines of a FICCI seminar on MSME financing here on Wednesday.

Recent market volatility and mounting economic concerns may play spoilsport for small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in Gujarat which were planning to list on the country’s first-ever dedicated bourse for SMEs — the SME Exchange. The Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) has already received final approval from the markets regulator, Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi), for the SME Exchange. However, entrepreneurs from Gujarat are cautious, having adopted a ‘wait-and-watch’ strategy. Gujarat’s SMEs — spread across the chemicals and dyes, pharmaceuticals, engineering and auto parts sectors — were thought of as promising candidates to list. But the number of units that may list from day-one is likely to dip from what was envisaged about three months ago.

The National Stock Exchange (NSE) plans to operationalise the proposed SME Exchange in the next few months, after getting the approval from the regulator last week. "We may start the proposed SME Exchange in the next few months," NSE Joint Managing Director Chitra Ramkrishna said. But she did not divulge further details. The NSE, along with the Small Industries Development Bank of India (Sidbi), is planning to set up this exchange and has received approvals from the Securities and Exchange Board (Sebi) last week. The SME Exchange will be a separate exchange within the NSE.Earlier, the premier bourse BSE had received Sebi approval for its proposed SME Exchange on September 28. The BSE is likely to start the operations next month.

The business confidence of small and medium enterprises (SMEs) on the economic outlook for the October-December quarter has declined due to high inflation and fears of a further hike in interest rates by the RBI, industry body CII has said. The Business Confidence Index (BCI) of SMEs for the third quarter stood at 54.7, a decline of 2.5 points as compared to the July-September period, CII said. The survey is calculated on the scale of 0-100, moving from unfavourable to favourable situation. "Inflation and high credit cost have certainly affected the Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises' (MSMEs) sentiments regarding credit availability," CII said.

Punjab is creating world-class infrastructure and would set up a technology institute to provide research support for the SME sector to cover up for its locational disadvantages, like being a landlocked state and surrounded by states that offer tax benefits to entrepreneurs. This was stated by Punjab deputy chief minister Sukhbir Singh Badal in his address at the FE Round Table Conference on the SME sector on Thursday. Badal claimed that his government was rapidly developing quality infrastructure that other states would find difficult to match. “Punjab today can boast of three international airports out of total 13 in the country,” he added.

With the SME Exchange of the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) set to be launched after Diwali, Ashok Monga, the managing director of Rhydburg pharmaceuticals, a Dehradun-based small company, is busily studying the nitty-gritty of planning an initial public offer (IPO) to raise capital. Monga has already held talks with Lakshman Gugulothu, CEO of the BSE SME Exchange, during an awareness session organised by the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) here. “As of now, we are studying various aspects associated with the IPO,” said Monga. Rhydburg is among several companies interested in raising equity capital to finance growth. According to Gugulothu, 50-60 SMEs are ready to raise equity capital by launching IPOs through the new exchange. The entrepreneurs are from small towns and cities like Meerut and Muzaffarnagar in Uttar Pradesh, Dehradun and Haridwar in Uttarakhand, and Jammu in Jammu & Kashmir, among others. Companies like Sarweshwar Basmati Rice in Jammu and Silver Ton in Muzaffarnagar also plan to raise equity capital through the new exchange.

The high cost at which credit is made available to small and medium enterprises (SMEs) is the foremost impediment to enhancing their growth and competitiveness in the domestic and global market, and also drives them to sickness. These are the findings of a recent survey undertaken by the PHD Chamber of SMEs located in UP, Haryana, Punjab, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Himachal Pradesh, Jammu & Kashmir, Uttarakhand, Punjab, Chandigarh and Delhi.

Stock exchanges face an uphill task to attract firms to their proposed trading platform, meant for small- and mid-sized entities. The biggest obstacle to the platform's success would be lack of support from merchant bankers, who may stay away from managing such issues, because of tough marketmaking rules and lower fees due to the smaller offer size. Companies with post-issue paidup capital between Rs 10 crore and Rs 25 crore, are eligible to be listed on the small and medium enterprises (SME) trading platform. Merchant bankers said handling SME issues would be risky for them. This is because Sebi has mandated investment bankers to provide market-making for a period of three years by providing two-way quotes for 75% of the total market time.

Small and medium enterprises (SMEs), which have traditionally faced problems in raising funds, now have several online portals – such as biz2credit.in, smehelpline.com and smegetmoney.com – to assist them in this task. These portals have come in to fill the space left vacant by banks and other financial institutions. Ramit Arora, co-founder and president, Indian operations, Biz2credit.in, said: “There are around 26 million SMEs in India. There is a fragmented process of business lending for the SMEs. To fill in the information gap, we have created this portal. It has been a successful model in the US, so we brought it to India.”

The possibility of an acute water supply shortage for medium and small-scale industries (MSMEs), amid growing environment concerns, coupled with international pressure has prompted them to visit two European countries this week to learn about the innovative technologies that help tackle the issue. A delegation of such players under the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry will leave for Italy and Germany on Tuesday — and also seek ways to import such knowhow, a top MSME official said today.