Bangalore, January 30 2021: Amazon India has signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the department of Industries & Commerce, Government of Karnataka to help drive e-commerce exports from the state.
As part of the MoU, Amazon will train and onboard MSMEs from the state on Amazon Global Selling, its Exports Program, enabling them to sell their unique Made in India products globally to millions of Amazon customers across 200+ countries and territories. Amazon Global Selling lowers the entry barrier for motivated Indian MSMEs to expand their business and launch their brands globally from anywhere in India. With this programme, homegrown businesses get instant access to global markets from Day 1, benefiting from Amazon’s distribution capabilities and global footprint to scale rapidly, creating a sustainable exports business.
Amazon will conduct trainings, webinars and on-boarding workshops for exporters from key MSME clusters like Bellary, Mysore, Channapatna and others. The workshops will focus on sharing knowledge and imparting trainings to MSMEs about B2C e-commerce exports and selling worldwide through Amazon’s 17 international marketplaces to over 300 million customers worldwide. These workshops aim to enable MSMEs with the knowledge and tools to launch their brands and grow their business in international markets through Amazon Global Selling. |
Said Jagadish Shettar, Karnataka’s Minister for Large and medium scale Industries: “Karnataka has a vibrant automobile, agro, aerospace, textile and garment, biotech, and toys / handicraft sectors which is held together by lakhs of MSMEs. Our partnership with Amazon India will encourage our MSMEs to leverage Amazon’s global presence and showcase their products to customers across the world. This is also an effort to display the strength of the state’s manufacturing and innovation prowess and our government remains committed to make Karnataka an attractive business and investment destination.”
Said Gaurav Gupta, Additional Chief Secretary, Commerce & Industries Department, Government of Karnataka: “E-commerce companies like Amazon have complemented government’s efforts in not only meeting the needs of customers by safely delivering essentials but also MSMEs which moved online to grow and expand their business during the Covid pandemic,”
Added Abhijit Kamra, Director,Global Trade, Amazon India:“This partnership with the Government of Karnataka is a step towards elevating lakhs of MSMEs from across the state to a global level. The Amazon Global Selling program has enabled more than 70,000 Indian exporters to cross $2billion in cumulative exports, which showcases crores of Made in India products. The program, which had hit cumulative exports of $1billion in 2019, saw a 100% increase in the next 18 months to cross the $2billion milestone. We remain committed towards making exports easy for Indian businesses and empower them to tap into their true potential, thus contributing to the vision of an Aatmanirbhar Bharat.”
In January 2020, Amazon had pledged to enable $10 billion in cumulative exports by 2025 helping Indian businesses grow by selling online worldwide.
The Amazon Global Selling programme was launched in India in 2015 with a few hundred sellers and today more than 70,000 exporters are benefiting by selling worldwide on 15 Amazon websites globally.
Karnataka MSME scene
Karnataka has a rich cultural and traditional heritage. Karnataka has multiple Geographical Indications products like Bidriware, Channapatna toys and Kinnhal craft. Mysore Silk, Udupi cotton and Ilkal sarees are world-famous. This will go a long way in helping the livelihoods of artisans, weavers and craftsmen from the state, Gupta added.
The MSME sector contributes 29.7 per cent to India's GDP and accounts for 49.66 per cent of Indian Exports and close to 45 per cent of the country's manufacturing output. It was one of those hit hardest by the COVID-19 pandemic, as supply chains disrupted across the world and trade came to an almost standstill.
In Karnataka, there are over 8 Lakh MSME units, with an investment of INR 86,000 crores and employing 5.6 million people. (56 Lakhs). The state has 10 clusters established under Micro Small Enterprise Cluster Development Programme: