Piyush Goyal Asked Bankers to Ensure Enhanced and Affordable Credit to MSMEs

Shri Piyush Goyal has asked the Indian banks to ensure enhanced and affordable credit to MSMEs to achieve the target of 1 trillion dollar merchandise exports. This was stated in a meeting called to discuss the issue of increasing the availability of export credit to the MSME exporters. The meeting was convened by the Department of Commerce in coordination with Export Credit Guarantee Corporation Limited, (ECGC), in New Delhi yesterday. It was attended by the top officials of 21 banks which included State Bank of India, Bank of Baroda, Punjab National Bank, Canara Bank, Union Bank of India, Bank of India and Central Bank of India.

A presentation on ‘Export Credit and Export Credit Insurance for Banks (ECIB)’ was made by CMD ECGC, Shri M. Senthilnathan. Based on ECGC’s experience under the scheme of enhanced cover, ECGC has now proposed further modifications to make available adequate and affordable credit to a larger section of MSME exporters. The product facilitates the borrower accounts to be treated equivalent to ‘AA’ rated account with reduced cost of export credit to the exporters.

In the meeting, Shri Piyush Goyal said that the ECGC can examine the extension of the scheme proposed for nine banks, to all the banks, so that the export credit offtake for the MSME Exporters can be increased.

Bankers suggested that ECGC should adopt claim processing method similar to Credit Guarantee Fund Trust for Micro and Small Enterprises (CGTMSE) for which Commerce and Industry Minister advised ECGC to follow a pattern on similar lines to compensate their loss.

The Minister advised the banks to take advantage of the proposed scheme and extend adequate and affordable export credit to MSME exporters. This would enable the country to achieve its target of USD 1 trillion merchandize exports by 2030. The Minister also advised ECGC to examine 75% claim payment to banks under the ECIB scheme, within 45 days of receiving the claim. It was further informed by the Minister that in the next four months, all the ECGC services would be digitized, so that physical interaction can be minimized.