The Common Facility Centre (CFC) was inaugurated in Bow Bazar, Kolkata in the presence of Rupa Dutta, Economic Adviser, Ministry of Commerce & Industry, Pramod Agrawal, Chairman, Gem and Jewellery Export Promotion Council (GJEPC) and senior officials from the Ministry of Commerce and Industry, GJEPC and Swarno Shilpo Bachao Committee (SSBC).
The CFC will benefit one lakh artisans engaged in the manufacture of handmade jewellery in and around Bowbazar, a major jewellery hub of Kolkata. The CFC at Bow Bazar will enhance the productivity and quality of products, especially the small gem and jewellery units in Bow Bazar and its surrounding areas by introducing cutting-edge technology in jewellery manufacturing amongst the artisans of the industry in the Kolkata gem and jewellery cluster.
Ministry of Commerce and Industry has taken a host of initiatives at the grassroots level for increasing the efficiency and empowering the MSMEs of the Indian gem and jewellery industry. Apart from introducing trade-friendly policies for the sector, the Ministry is also facilitating the industry through the creation of an infrastructure in the form of CFCs.
Economic Advisor, Ministry of Commerce and Industry, Rupa Dutta, said that the exports of gem and jewellery accounts for USD 40 billion annually employing more than five million people across the country. The industry has a huge potential to grow and it is the aim of the Ministry of Commerce and Industry to boost exports in this sector to USD 75 billion by 2025 added Economic Advisor.
She further said that CFC is one of the initiatives where the effort is to enhance the productivity and quality of products of MSME units and make them contribute to exports.
Setting up CFCs across the country to help the marginal workers to upgrade their product quality and output has been carried out through GJEPC with the help of Local Trade Association (LTA) of the respective manufacturing hubs. The Council has already set up CFCs at major diamond clusters in Gujarat like Amreli, Palanpur, Visnagar and Junagadh. The CFC in Kolkata was inaugurated on January 30.
The objective of setting up CFCs is to give the small and medium jewellery manufacturing units' access to a common pool of high-end and capital-intensive state-of-the-art machinery/equipment which is otherwise unaffordable for individual small and medium jewellery manufacturers.
( With inputs from ANI )