The role of small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in India’s development in recent years was a factor the whole world admired, a senior official of the Commonwealth Secretariat said here on Sunday.

“For the rest of the Commonwealth, the Indian SME experience provides an opportunity to learn,” George Saibel, director (special advisory services division) of the Secretariat, said. He was addressing the inaugural session of the fourth Commonwealth-India Small Business Competitiveness Development programme, a six-day conference spread across Chennai, Pondicherry and Kancheepuram.

Counter inequality

He said the theme of the programme, `Poverty alleviation through sustainable SME development,’ was apt in the context of the sector’s potential to “connect economic growth to poorer people and counter concerns of growing inequality that some regard as an inevitable consequence of globalisation.”

Engine of growth

Secretary to the Union Ministries of Small Scale Industries and Agro and Rural Industry, Anupam Dasgupta said SMEs along with micro enterprises were the proverbial engine of growth, contributing significantly to exports and providing employment to many.

“Nonetheless, with the increasing pace of globalisation, they face challenges, which necessitates the need for capacity building and measures to improve competitiveness. The SMEs in the Commonwealth need to compete and cooperate by identifying and sharing best practices.”

The Chairman and Managing Director of National Small Industries Corporation, H. P. Kumar, underscored the need to provide easy access to credit for small enterprises and measures to facilitate marketing of their products in local and international markets.

Need for structure

“It is necessary to have a well-structured SME development framework for poverty alleviation and programmes for establishing networking support mechanism between the Commonwealth countries.”

Executive Director of the M. S. Swaminathan Research Foundation, M. Velayutham said the potential of the SMEs to alleviate poverty was unlimited.

General manager of Export-Import Bank of India K. Muthukumaran and Adviser (Enterprise Development) of the Commonwealth Secretariat’s Division Ram Venuprasad also spoke.