“National Small Industries Corporation (NSIC) is set to widen the tie-ups to ‘more’ foreign organisations/bodies which were dealing with MSMEs in their respective nations and also plans to work closely with State governments on skill development, to foster MSME sector’s overall growth in India”.

NSIC chairman Ravindra Nath told this in a chat with The Hindu while on a visit to Tirupur knitwear cluster on Wednesday.

Elaborating on the array of new initiatives planned by the NSIC, Mr. Nath said the corporation would forge a link with Small and Medium Business Corporation (SBC) in South Korea similar on the lines of the recent tie-up entered with ‘SME Corp’ in Malayisia. These alliances are aimed at sharing of the best manufacturing practices, transfer of technologies, creation of joint ventures and setting up of technology transfer facilitation centres,” he added.

This apart, the NSIC would be soon entering into a Memorandum of Understanding with the renowned ‘SAP’, a Germany-headquartered company which is into providing Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) solutions. The MoU is to train MSME sector employees in India on ERPs on a massive scale,” added NSIC’s Chief General Manager (Technology) Sativinder Singh.

As part of the plans to stimulate entrepreneurship and enhance the worker skills, the NSIC would be working more closely with the State governments.

“We have recently entered into an agreement with Haryana government for setting up training-cum-incubation centre with the government providing an edifice of 87,400 square feet located on a nine-acre space for 31-year lease,” said Mr. Nath.

States like Odisha, Andhra and Telangana are also showing interest on these lines, he added.

He dismissed the accusations that demonetisation and GST implementation affected the MSMEs. “These are process of refinement and it will help the MSMEs in the longer run,” he said.