JSW Steel launches website to help MSMEs procure steel
Jayant Acharya, Director - Commercial Marketing and Corporate Strategy, JSW Steel, said the JSW For MSME website helps small businesses with preferential pricing for its steel products, as well as a dedicated sales team for such purchases.
Leading Indian steel making company JSW Steel has launched a dedicated website for MSMEs to help them purchase steel in smaller quantities, said Jayant Acharya, Director - Commercial Marketing and Corporate Strategy, JSW Steel, on Tuesday.
He said MSMEs are usually smaller companies that produce various products for domestic and international markets, and facilitating them with timely and affordable deliveries will enable them to compete much better.
"With this aim, JSW Steel has launched the website JSW For MSME. We are encouraging MSMEs to register so that we understand their requirements better. JSW Steel extends help to MSMEs with preferential pricing for its steel products and a dedicated sales team for MSMEs," he added.
Acharya further said MSMEs account for 30 percent of India's GDP. The target is to take this contribution to 50 percent by 2024-25. In India, there are over 60 million MSME units and many of them are engineering exporters.
Engineering exports in 2019-20 was about $76 billion, and the government aims to double it to $150 billion by 2024-25. JSW would also like to participate and enable this growth for the MSMEs, Acharya noted.
On the problems faced by MSMEs in sourcing steel, the director said they are smaller companies, and their lot sizes are small. Thus, if an MSME "requires a couple of tonnes of a product, it is really difficult for them to access through imports or other markets on a regular basis," he said, adding:
"For imports, MSMEs need to have a three-month window and nobody is going to book 100 tonnes or 200-tonne orders for them. So, for them to predict international market developments becomes very difficult. Because of this mismatch, their ability to respond to the international market in time and participate in growth is limited.
"I believe there are more than 60 million MSMEs in the country. Suppose even one million buys 100 tonne of steel per year, that means 100 million tonnes. We would encourage more and more MSMEs to come and register on the site and JSW Steel will supply (directly) or through our distributor channels," he added.
Edited by Suman Singh