Announcing that a provision of Rs. 3794 crore has been provided in the General Budget 2018-19 for the Medium, Small and Micro Enterprises (MSMEs), the Union Minister for Finance and Corporate Affairs, Arun Jaitley said that this has been done to provide credit support, capital and interest subsidy and innovations to this Sector. Presenting the General Budget 2018-19 in Parliament here today, Jaitley added that an outlay of Rs.7148 crore has been provided for the Textile Sector.

Strongly emphasising that creation of job opportunities and facilitating generation of employment has been at the core of policy-making of the Government over the last three years, the Finance Minister mentioned that an independent study conducted recently has shown creation of 70 lakh formal jobs this year. Jaitley pointed out that the Government will contribute 12% of the wages of the new employees in the Employee Provident Fund (EPF) for all the sectors for next three years.  The Finance Minister also referred to the extension of the facility of fixed term employment to all sectors. He underlined that the Government will soon announce measures for effectively addressing non-performing assets and stressed accounts of MSMEs.   

In an effort to reduce tax burden on MSMEs and to create large-scale employment, Jaitley also announced measures to extend the benefit of reduced rate of 25% to companies who have reported turnover up to Rs.250 crore in the Financial Year 2016-17. "This will benefit the entire class of micro, small and medium enterprises which accounts for almost 99% of companies filing their tax returns," the Finance Minister said.   He expressed confidence that the lower Corporate Income Tax rate for 99% will leave companies with higher investible surplus, leading to creation of more jobs.

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