Trade liberalization - impacts and opportunities for SMEs in the textile, leather, and seafood sectors

The key objectives are understanding and highlighting the difficulties faced by the SMEs (small- and medium-scale enterprises) due to trade liberalization and assisting them in coping with this changing international scenario by holding sector-specific workshops; preparing practical booklets on European Union/United States norms (mainly health, safety, SPS [sanitary and phyto-sanitary], and packaging related), and drawing up policy recommendations for the respective ministries. Better assessment of trade concerns and challenges facing the SMEs in the textile, leather, and seafood sectors, along with assessment of the impact of international norms pertaining to health, labelling, and SPS measures on these SMEs would be stressed. An upward linkage between the SMEs and policy-makers would be created by sharing of the information obtained from SMEs (in particular, the constraints faced by these sectors) with government officials at the central and state levels (via workshops, publications, and tri-annual newsletter).