"However much of this celebration has been confined to the success of big business house. I do not deny this success but the profile of top business houses has seen a sea change between the early 50s and today. Large private business groups have overtaken public sector firms and more interestingly, first generation entrepreneurs have overtaken more established business houses and many of them began as SMEs. This does point to the dynamism in our corporate sector. It also provides hope and confidence that many of you here today will smoothly transform yourself into large industrial houses in the years to come. It is this animal spirit of enterprise and creativity, nurtured by the SMEs that we have unleashed and which is going to be the vehicle of our sustained growth."

"The growth in the small and medium enterprises in the last six decades is impressive; they have contributed both to the growth of new industries as well as of new industrial centres, cities and towns like Surat, Rajkot, Tirupur, Coimbatore, Faridabad, Ludhiana, Visakhapatnam and scores of others have come up, because of the growth of small and medium enterprises."

"We must acknowledge the role that corporate entities, both in the public and private sector, have played in nurturing SMEs through sub-contracting and ancillarisation and this has been particularly true in industries like automobile and auto accessories, steel products, machine tools, textiles and apparels, chemicals and pharmaceuticals"

"The growth of the SMEs has also been facilitated by the rejuvenation of artisional skills and traditional crafts. SMEs have also benefited from winds of change blowing across our economy as a result of our increasing openness. They have today greater access to global markets and have become part of an evolving global supply chain. Consequently, they have also upgraded their skills, capabilities and technology levels."

"I would suggest we must recognise the role that the public policy has also played in enabling the growth of the SME sector."

"Our government is committed to the growth of SMEs and to the emergence of new enterprises in India. We have announced a policy package for doubling credit flow to this sector. As our economy grows, new growth opportunities are emerging for SMEs in sectors like defence, civil aviation, tourism, biotechnology and agri-business."

"I sincerely hope that the limited partnership bill, which our government proposes to bring to the Parliament very shortly will help to deal with some of the consequences of large excessive risks that small and medium enterprises have to face in starting new ventures."

"I sincerely believe that a boom in many parts of our IT sector has been a result of its easy access to foreign venture capital. We need much more of that domestically to give a new fillip to small and medium enterprises. We also need a policy regime that can enable SMEs to make a smooth transition to a larger scale without unnecessary impediment."

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