The Indian Plastic industry has grown and diversified rapidly. The industry spans the country and as per market estimates, the industry employs about 4 million people and comprises more than 30,000 processing units out of which about 85% are small and medium-sized enterprises.
On December 17, as a proactive initiative, a select group of over 50 MSMEs from Greater Noida’s Plastic & Plastic Molding industry got together to discuss various ways and means of leveraging new opportunities in their industry and how better collaboration amongst themselves can enable build business competitiveness.
While it is an accepted fact that Greater Noida is an emerging hub for small and medium enterprises, industry specific B2B forums and awareness programmes in this SME cluster has not been too many. In this regard, it was a welcome sight to see the Plastic Mold & Molding B2B forum being organized in Greater Noida. There was participation by SIDBI, whose local Manager made a presentation on various schemes offered by SIDBI that can enable credit facilitation.
Entrepreneurs present introduced themselves and many offered constructive suggestions for building collaborations amongst themselves which can help them seize the power of collective negotiations for their business requirements. It was also felt that digital platforms can help share information and build collaborative networks for bringing about business effectiveness.
SMEpost.com team caught up with some of the entrepreneurs and spoke to them on various aspects.
Speaking on the issue of demonetisation, Jitendra Pareek, Vice President, Indian Industries Association, said, “As such, no visible impact of demonetisation can be seen when it comes to plastic industry in Greater Noida. Here, the industry is working as ancillaries of bigger companies. The payments they receive are self-accounted. The only effect that can be seen is when it comes to salary disbursement of employees. Otherwise, the businesses are turning cleaner, fairer, along with transparency. The future looks brighter as we move towards a new era of digital India”
One of the key participants of the forum was Z Rehman, MD, Indoplast, a company that has successfully evolved as a leading manufacturer & OEM partner of Plastic moulded components, sheet metal components and electrical accessories for global brands. Incidentally, Indoplast was one of the winners of SMEpost.com #SuperSMEawards, which was held on July 9th and attended by Union MSME Minister Kalraj Mishra.
Speaking on the impending implementation of GST, Rehman said, “GST will lessen the paper-work and make the system transparent. The existing system includes many forms, border entries which increase the paper-work. The expectation is everything becomes digital. This will enable convenient transparency. If a manufactured good travels from Delhi to Pune, for say, there won’t be a need to show paper at each point. This will save time, money, and of course bring about convenience and good governance. The government also needs to train people at ground level to spread awareness about the system and then the roll-out will ease the doing of business.”
Another entrepreneur who was part of the forum, S.P Sharma, while commenting about expectation of MSMEs from the forthcoming Union Budget said, “Hopes and aspirations of MSMEs should be considered when top officials get together in drafting the finer aspects related to the development of our country’s SME sector. Engagement with MSMEs at cluster level will enable getting the right feedback about the needs of MSMEs from the ground.”
SMEpost wishes all Greater Noida entrepreneurs a very successful and prosperous 2017 and solicits regular engagement with all MSMEs of Greater Noida. For any relevant news, pertaining to Greater Noida MSME cluster or if you have any success story / any industry development, please feel free to get in touch with us. You can e-mail us at connect@SMEpost.com.
( Report filed by Shriddha Chaturvedi & Swastika Tripathi )
