‘Need of the hour is creation of more jobs through exports, strengthening of MSME’

Kolkata: Amit Mitra, Principal Chief Advisor to Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee pitched for the integration of common people through employment in the state through a US-India partnership for livelihood and economic prosperity.

Mitra said that the need of the hour is the creation of more employment through exports, strengthening of the MSME sector in the state and value-chain integration. He cited the example of Flipkart’s single unit at Kalyani that presently employs 12,000 people.

“During 2022-23, exports from Bengal to the US jumped by 55 per cent over the previous period with exports from Bengal to the US standing approximately at USD 13 to 15 billion,” Mitra said, adding that nearly ten per cent of India’s exports to the US originate from Bengal.

According to Mitra, the major items of exports to the US from Bengal are gems and jewellery, shrimp, human hair for wigs and industrial gloves among others.

“The University of Arizona has partnered with the state and we have set up a Centre for Reduction of Disease Among Fish at Midnapore so that the export standards for export of shrimp and other marine products to the US are met properly. The sanitary and phyto-sanitary measures for fish export are very strict in the US,” Mitra said, adding that in the last financial year Vannamei shrimp export to the US had fetched 427 million US dollars.

Stressing upon greater technological collaboration between the US and Bengal, he said that US technology is being used by two companies for the production of coal bed methane (CBM) gas in Bengal.

“We are now eyeing collaboration in shell gas, casting and forging,” he added.

Mitra said in the last fiscal, the US emerged as the largest trading partner of India with merchandise exports from India to the US overtaking China.

US Consul General in Kolkata Melinda Pavek said that the US government is working hard on reducing bureaucratic and administrative hurdles for a frictionless relationship between the two countries,

Moreover, the US has set a target for issuing one million visas to Indian citizens in 2023. “We are well on our way to reaching that target and might also surpass that,” Pavek said.