courtesy- financial express
This program targets improvement in the performance of 555,000 MSMEs and is expected to mobilize financing of $15.5 billion, as a part of government’s 3.4 billion dollars MSME Competitiveness – A Post-COVID-19 Resilience and Recovery Programme (MCRRP).
The World Bank in the statement added that ”Having supported the immediate liquidity and credit needs of viable MSMEs in the first phase, the RAMP Program will support the Government of India’s efforts to increase MSME productivity and financing in the economic recovery phase, crowd in private sector financing in the medium term, and tackle long-standing financial sector issues that are holding back the growth of the MSME sector.”
Junaid Ahmad, World Bank Country Director in India stated that ”The MSME sector, a critical backbone of India’s economy, has been hard hit by the COVID-19 pandemic, the RAMP program will intensify efforts to support firms to return to pre-crisis production and employment levels, while laying the foundations for longer-term productivity-driven growth and generation of much-needed jobs in the MSME sector.”
Peter Mousley, lead Private Sector Specialist and World Bank’s task team leader said in the Program that, “The MSME sector in India faces several challenges. There is a need to strengthen access to formal sources of financial and non-financial services, including of women headed MSMEs, and strengthen coordination in the national and state MSME support programs. Given the magnitude and geographical spread across the country, direct interventions can be prohibitively costly.”
Government’s MCRRP objective is supported by RAMP program of providing a more comprehensive and coordinated Centre-state approach to improve MSME sector productivity to reduce the gender gap and promote more environmental sustainable investment.
The USD 500mn loan from IBRD has a maturity of 18.5 years inclusive of 5.5 year grace period.