The 2nd meeting of the micro, small and medium enterprises (MSME) Round Table and the Seminar on Services was held on 28 July, 2016 at Agra. The BRICS is a grouping consisting of 5 countries namely Brazil, China, India, Russia and South Africa. Mr Dammu Ravi, Joint Secretary, Department of Commerce was the moderator of both the MSME Round Table and the Seminar on Services. Mr S.N Tripathi, Additional Secretary and Development Commissioner, MSME was the Chief Guest at the 2nd MSME Round Table. The Chief Guest highlighted the importance of the MSME sector and how the government had been a facilitator for the sector with a view to encouraging entrepreneurship in order to stimulate manufacturing in line with the flagship schemes of the government namely Make in India and Skill India.
The deliberations were centred around the regulatory framework and institutional structures of MSMEs; the role of MSMEs in innovation, technology transfer and international projects; integration of MSMEs in the global value chains and a possible portal for BRICS MSMEs. India also provided a brief on the 1st BRICS Trade Fair to be held in October, 2016. The BRICS delegations decided that they would take the discussions and possible cooperation on MSMEs forward. In the 2nd BRICS Seminar on Services, the issues that were discussed were cooperation on the services statistics in the BRICS region and possible areas of cooperation on trade facilitation in services. The discussions were useful and highlighted the importance of the service sector in the BRICS region.