SYLLABUS
GS-3: Indian Economy and issues relating to planning, mobilisation of resources, growth, development and employment.
Context: Recently, the Union Minister of Commerce and Industry launched seven additional interventions under the Export Promotion Mission (EPM) to empower Micro, Small, and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs) for global markets.
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- These interventions are designed to address key challenges faced by Indian exporters, promote broad-based and inclusive export growth, and strengthen India’s position as a globally competitive export powerhouse.
- They aim to address structural constraints faced by MSMEs, including high cost of capital, limited access to diversified trade finance instruments, compliance burdens in international markets, logistics disadvantages, and barriers to market entry.
- The announcement was made on the occasion of World Day of Social Justice with emphasis on inclusive growth and empowerment of marginalised sections.
- The Union Minister highlighted that nearly 70% of global GDP and two-thirds of global trade are now accessible to India through nine concluded FTAs.
Seven Interventions under the Export Promotion Mission (EPM)
Niryat Protsahan Financial Support
- Support for Alternative Trade Instruments (Export Factoring): Support for Alternative Trade Instruments promotes export factoring as a working capital solution for MSMEs with 2.75% interest subvention and annual assistance capped at ₹50 lakh through a digital claim mechanism.
- Credit Assistance for E-Commerce Exporters: Credit Assistance for E-Commerce Exporters provides structured credit with interest subvention and partial guarantees, including support up to ₹50 lakh for direct e-commerce exporters and up to ₹5 crore for overseas inventory financing.
- Support for Emerging Export Opportunities: Support for Emerging Export Opportunities enables exporters to enter new or high-risk markets through shared risk and credit-based financial instruments.
Niryat Disha Ecosystem Support
- Trade Regulations, Accreditation & Compliance Enablement (TRACE): TRACE assists exporters in meeting international testing inspection and certification requirements with reimbursement up to 75%, subject to an annual ceiling of ₹25 lakh per IEC.
- Facilitating Logistics, Overseas Warehousing & Fulfilment (FLOW): FLOW supports overseas warehousing and fulfilment infrastructure with assistance up to 30% of the approved project cost for a maximum of three years.
- Logistics Interventions for Freight & Transport (LIFT): LIFT provides reimbursement up to 30% of eligible freight expenditure for exporters in low export intensity districts, subject to a ceiling of ₹20 lakh per IEC per year.
- Integrated Support for Trade Intelligence & Facilitation (INSIGHT): INSIGHT strengthens exporter capacity building and trade intelligence systems with financial assistance up to 50% of project cost and up to 100% for government institutions and Indian Missions abroad.
About Export Promotion Mission
- The Mission was announced in the Union Budget 2025–26 as a major structural reform that merges multiple fragmented export support schemes into a single outcome-based and digitally enabled framework.
- The Mission has a total financial outlay of ₹25,060 crore for the period from FY 2025–26 to FY 2030–31.
- The Mission aims to strengthen India’s export ecosystem by improving access to affordable trade finance and enhancing global market readiness and competitiveness across sectors and regions.
- The Mission focuses on creating a unified and performance-driven mechanism to promote sustained and inclusive export growth.
- The Mission is anchored in an institutional framework involving the Department of Commerce, Ministry of MSME, Ministry of Finance, Export Promotion Councils, Commodity Boards, financial institutions, industry associations and state governments.
- The Export Promotion Mission adopts a holistic ecosystem approach by combining financial enablers under ‘Niryat Protsahan’ and trade ecosystem support under ‘Niryat Disha’.
- Niryat Protsahan (Financial Enablers): This sub-scheme focuses on improving access to affordable trade finance for MSME exporters through instruments such as interest subvention on pre- and post-shipment credit, export-factoring and deep-tier financing, credit cards for e-commerce exporters, collateral support for export credit and credit-enhancement for new or high-risk markets.
- Niryat Disha (Non-Financial Enablers): This sub-scheme aims to raise market readiness and competitiveness through support for export quality and compliance (testing, certification, audits), international branding and packaging assistance, participation in trade fairs and buyer-seller meets, export warehousing and logistics, inland transport reimbursements for remote-district exporters, and capacity-building at clusters, associations and district-level facilitation cells.
Significance of the Export Promotion Mission
- The mission strengthens India’s export ecosystem by integrating financial and non-financial support into a single, digitally driven framework.
- It enhances MSME competitiveness by improving access to affordable trade finance and reducing compliance-related costs.
- It helps safeguard employment and export orders in sectors affected by global tariff escalations such as textiles, leather, engineering goods and marine products.
- It addresses structural challenges like high logistics costs, weak export branding and fragmented market access, enabling long-term export resilience.