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Commerce Minister Piyush Goyal has asked banks to ensure enhanced and affordable credit to MSMEs to achieve the target of $1 trillion merchandise exports by 2030.

He gave these directions during a meeting called recently to discuss the issue of increasing the availability of export credit to the MSME exporters. The meeting was attended by top officials of 21 banks including the State Bank of India, Bank of Baroda, Punjab National Bank, Canara Bank, Union Bank of India, Bank of India and Central Bank of India among others.

A presentation on ‘Export Credit and Export Credit Insurance for Banks (ECIB)’ was made by Export Credit Guarantee Corporation Ltd (ECGC) Chairman M. Senthilnathan.

Based on its experience under the scheme of enhanced cover, the ECGC has now proposed further modifications to make available adequate and affordable credit to a larger section of MSME exporters.

The product facilitates the borrower accounts to be treated equivalent to ‘AA’ rated account with reduced cost of export credit to the exporters.

In the meeting, Goyal said that the ECGC can examine the extension of the scheme, proposed for nine banks, to all the banks so that the export credit offtake for the MSME exporters can be increased.

Bankers, on their part, suggested that the ECGC should adopt claim processing method similar to the Credit Guarantee Fund Trust for Micro and Small Enterprises (CGTMSE) for which the Commerce Minister advised the ECGC to follow a pattern on similar lines to compensate their loss.

Goyal further advised banks to take advantage of the proposed scheme and extend adequate and affordable export credit to MSME exporters. This would enable the country to achieve its target of $1 trillion merchandise exports by 2030.

He also advised the ECGC to examine 75 per cent claim payment to banks under the ECIB scheme, within 45 days of receiving the claim. It was further informed by the minister that in the next four months, all the ECGC services would be digitised, so that physical interaction can be minimised.