New Delhi (ILO News): Today, the ILO Country Office for India and the Federation of Indian Chamber of Commerce and Industries (FICCI) signed the second Phase of the Memorandum of Understanding on ‘Sustaining Competitive and Responsible Enterprises or (SCORE)’, a specialised global training tool to improve productivity of SMEs. SCORE is designed by the ILO with support from the Swiss Secretariat for Economic Affairs (SECO) and the Norway Agency for Development Cooperation (NORAD). Ms. Tomoko Nishimoto, Assistant Director-General and Regional Director for Asia and the Pacific, ILO welcomed and expressed hope for greater synergies between both the institutions to compliment the Government of India’s and industry’s efforts towards the growth and development of the MSMEs in India and make a small contribution to the Make in India as well as Skill India initiatives of the Government. This MOU forms the basis for a technical partnership to institutionalize SCORE in FICCI with the primary objective of creating more and better quality jobs in the SMEs which fall in the supply chains of large enterprises/ MNCs. The phase 2 of the MOU, an extension of the previous MOU signed last year in August, will be for a year and will focus on scaling-up industry uptake of SCORE in India. Underlining the value addition due to this collaboration to FICCI’s portfolio in responding to the productivity up gradation needs of its SME members as well as the SME vendors of its corporate members, Mr. Sanjay Bhatia, President, FICCI Confederation of MSME stated “The partnership bringing the industry body and an specialised international agency together is expected to contribute to holistic development of the SMEs in India from the perspective of skill development, employees relation and better business efficiency”.

Also present during this occasion were Mr. B.P. Pant, Advisor, FICCI; Counsellor, Head of Political Affairs, Royal Norwegian Embassy, New Delhi and ; Mr. Daniel Ziegerer, Director of Cooperation and Counsellor, Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC), Embassy of Switzerland, Climate Change and Development.

Ms. Tomoko Nishimoto, Assistant Director-General and Regional Director for Asia and the Pacific, ILO and Mr. Sanjay Bhatia, President, FICCI Confederation of MSME signed the MOU on behalf of their organizations.