KOCHI: Stating that some people are deliberately trying to suppress the positive industrial environment that currently exists in the state, Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan on Monday said the government’s Year of Enterprises 2.0 programme will identify and provide support to 1,000 MSMEs with the aim of achieving an average turnover of Rs 100 crore over the next four years.
“There has been a misinformation campaign against Kerala that the state is not suitable for industries. Those who spread such a campaign have only one objective -- to belittle Kerala. Despite such campaigns, big companies including MNCs are setting up units in Kerala. The names include a long list such as Airbus, Nissan, TechMahindra, and Taurus,” the CM said while launching Entrepreneurship Year 2.0 - Mission 1,000, organised by the Industries Department here.
The entrepreneurship year campaign by the industries department, launched last year, saw the state achieving the target of 1 lakh MSMEs within eight months. A total of 139,000 MSMEs were established in the full year of 2022-23. It also created about 3 lakh new jobs, and Rs 8,500 crore investment.
“The popularity of this has led us to continue with the project for the second year,” Pinarayi said, adding that MSMEs identified for Mission 1,000 will get separate benefits and packages. The MSMEs should have functioned for a minimum of three years to get the benefits, he said.
The state economy and the MSMEs faced all kinds of challenges, from man-made setbacks such as demonetisation, and unscientific implementation of GST, to natural disasters and the pandemic. Amid all these challenges, the state could achieve economic growth of 12%, while the manufacturing sector showed even higher growth of 18.9% in 2021-22.
He said the new industrial policy, approved by the government, will make the state’s industrial environment even more conducive for investors. The ‘Make in Kerala initiative is designed to reduce the state’s trade deficit. A total of Rs 1,000 crore is set aside for this. “In this budget Rs 100 crore was allocated for Make in Kerala, as a first installment,” the CM said.
Industries Minister P Rajeeve said during last year, 45,107 MSMEs were started by women, and 14 by the transgender community. “For the first time, we celebrated women entrepreneurs’ Day. We invited women entrepreneurs during the day for an event, and they shared their experiences,” he said. Another interesting thing is that 23,474 units were in the food processing sector, and 14,000-odd units were in the garments sector. Both these sectors saw a large participation by women entrepreneurs, Rajeeve said. Finance Minister K N Balagopal launched the ‘Mission 1000’ web portal. Minister for LSG M B Rajesh and other senior officers of the industries department also participated in the event.