Government’s Bold Move to Strengthen MSMEs & Export Ecosystem

The long-awaited Export Promotion Mission (EPM) is finally here, which was approved by the Union Cabinet chaired by PM Narendra Modi on 12 November 2025. The Union Cabinet approved two different schemes cumulatively worth ₹45060 crore to boost the exporters, especially from the Micro, Small, and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs) in India, who were facing huge challenges post the US 50% tariff imposition on a wide number of Indian products. 

The Export Promotion Mission has an outlay of ₹25060 crore, while the other scheme is the Credit Guarantee Scheme for Exporters (CGSE), which has an outlay of ₹20000 crore as approved by the cabinet. 

Export Promotion Mission 

EPM was first announced in the Union Budget of FY26, where the initial allocation of ₹2,250 crore was stipulated for the current fiscal. Now this mission will continue till FY31 as approved yesterday with the increased outlay of funds. 

This Cabinet scheme is dedicated to improving India’s export competitiveness on the global platform, especially for the first-time exporters and the sectors that are labour-intensive, such as leather, engineering goods, textiles, gems & jewellery, and marine products. 

Sub-schemes – Niryat Protsahan & Niryat Disha

EPM is also designed to amalgamate two key MSME export schemes in India, which are the Interest Equalisation Scheme and the Market Access Initiative. Now these two schemes will be implemented via two sub-schemes, which are Niryat Protsahan and Niryat Disha, with an allocation of ₹10401 crore and ₹14659 crore, respectively. 

While Niryat Protsahan will aim at providing trade financial support for MSMEs by making affordable trade finance easily accessible. It will be done via export factoring, interest subvention, collateral guarantees, credit cards for e-commerce exporters, and also credit enhancement for market diversification. For more competition and market readiness enhancement, non-financial enablers are being introduced. This would include export-quality and compliance support, participation in trade fairs, international branching and packaging, export warehousing and logistics facilities, trade intelligence, capacity building initiatives, inland transport reimbursement, and others. On the other hand, Niryat Disha will be for promoting international market access. 

Currently, there are multiple export-oriented schemes in the market; however, all fragmented. EPM will bring all these together under a single roof, which will be outcome-based and also have an adaptive mechanism that can easily adapt to the global challenges in trade and export practices to boost the overall exports and the MSMEs. 

Credit Guarantee Scheme for Exporters (CGSE) 

This is one of the credit guarantee schemes that will offer credit support to exporters, which will be disbursed as additional working capital, and the credit amount can be up to 20% of the sanctioned export limits of the MSMEs. Under this programme, there will be a credit guarantee on loans up to ₹50 crore as well, and this will be implemented by the Department of Financial Services (DFS) through the National Credit Guarantee Trustee Company Limited. 

The DFS will form a management company, which will be chaired by the Secretary of DFS, to monitor the scheme implementation and progress. 

The scheme is expected to strengthen liquidity in the export market and help India move towards its $1 trillion export goal sooner with smooth business operations. The scheme is also expected to boost India’s export competitiveness and open new doors in the emerging markets. 

Impact of EPM & CGSE

Both schemes are expected to improve India’s export business, especially via MSMEs, as they contribute to 45% of India’s total export volume. It can also create employment as export-oriented industries, whether directly or indirectly, employ 45 million people in the country. 

Now it will be interesting to see how these schemes are actually implemented and how they turn around the challenges MSMEs are facing due to the tariff imposition. On the other hand, Indian and the US are almost about to sign the bilateral trade agreement as both countries indicated that they have reached the end of their discussion phase. 

Source: BusinessStandard

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