SME Times News Bureau | 05 Nov, 2015
MSME Secretary, Anup Pujari Wednesday said that Micro, Small
and Medium Enterprise (MSME) sector is the single largest contributor to the
nation's GDP, reports media.
"MSME sector is important in two ways...First, because it contributes as
the single largest source to the gross domestic product (GDP) of the country,
and second, which is more important, is that it is the most innovative among
all the sectors," MSME Secretary Anup Pujari said during Switch-Asia
Conference.
"Innovation essentially comes because in a big corporation, the innovative
activities get diffused where as in a micro or small unit, the innovative
activity is more focused, more linked to the actual problem that they face.
"This is true in India, this will be true in Bhutan and
this will be true in Germany, everywhere," he said.
He was speaking at Switch-Asia, an international conference
and networking event on the role of Sustainable Consumption and Production
(SCP) towards building livelihoods in Asia.
"But as I mentioned, the event is important because it
is networking. Networking would mean meeting each other, learning from each
other and trying to share the best practices.
"Therefore, it is not necessary that every country,
every enterprise must reinvent to win. We must try to share what other people
have done and try to adopt and adapt that," Pujari said.
SCP has officially become a global Sustainable Development
Goal (SDG), following the adoption of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable
Development in New York on September 25, 2015.
Switch-Asia is the largest programme funded by the European
Union (EU) to promote SCP in Asia. It works across 16 Asian countries through
more than 90 demonstration projects and policy support actions.
To date, 11 EU-funded Switch-Asia projects have been
initiated in India that promote sustainable consumption and production
practices in line with the agenda of Ministry of Environment, Forest and
Climate Change.
The three-day event is organised by EU's Switch-Asia
Programme with the support of India's Ministry of Environment, Forest and
Climate Change and Ministry of Micro, Small and Medium Sized Enterprises.
Johann Hesse, Head of Cooperation, Delegation of the
European Union to India, stated, "Sustainable Consumption and Production
puts the green economy in the spotlight.
Sustainable Consumption and Production reconciles growth
with sustainability, showing how both can be achieved at the same time."
Switch-Asia projects, he said, "can play a critical
role, by supporting micro, small and medium scale businesses and consumers not
only to go green but also to increase their economic competitiveness.