ACTION INITIATIED BY MINISTRY OF MSME TO COUNTER THE IMPACT OF WTO THROUGH SENSITISATION WORKSHOPS, CAPACITY BUILDING, SECTORAL STUDIES, ETC.

• With a view to create awareness among the SSI units, SSI Associations, etc. on WTO Agreements and its implication for them, Ministry of SSI & ARI organised 28 one day Sensitization Workshops all over the country during 2000. A report on the basis of feedback has since been prepared and necessary action on the Action Points which emerged during these workshops has also been initiated.



• This Ministry has organised 14 one day workshops on Intellectual Property Rights (IPRs) during 2001-2002 with the assistance of WIPO. These Workshops have been conducted at Bangalore, Jaipur, Pune, Mumbai, Hyderabad, Chennai, New Delhi, Ahmedabad, Agra, Guwahati, Cochin, Indore, Goa and Chandigarh.



• This Ministry has also organised 16 Seminars all over the country to disseminate information to the SSI Industries Association on Anti Dumping Procedures. These seminars have been organised in association with representatives of Dte. General of Anti-Dumping & Allied Duties (DGAD) at various ports.



• This Ministry has got the five sectoral studies conducted in areas which have a strong SSI presence so as to formulate a pro-active strategy and to fine tune the existing policies and programmes. To begin with five sectoral studies have been undertaken with UNDP assistance of US$20,000. The sectors selected for the studies are Handtools, Medicinal Biotechnology, Glass and Ceramics, Bicycle parts and Flavour & Fragrance. The reports of these sectoral studies have since been received and are under examination.



• This Ministry is financially supporting Industry Associations to develop monitoring mechanisms on the performance of four selected product clusters in terms of growth, removal of QRs, surge in imports, etc.. The Associations/clusters are CII -Food Processing and Machine Tools, FISME - Shaneel and Kishangarh Marble Association - Marble located at Pune, Bangalore, Panipat, and Kishangarh respectively. The work on these projects has since been started.

Inter-ministerial Standing Group

• As per EXIM Policy announced on 31.03.2001, a Standing Group consisting of Commerce Secretary, Revenue Secretary, Secretary (SSI&ARI), Secretary (AHD) and Director General of Foreign Trade has been created. The said group is functioning as a “War Room” for tracking, collating and analysing data on 300 sensitive items including 67 items sensitive to Small Scale Sector.