RBI notifies inclusion of retail, wholesale trade under MSME category

In an important development, the Reserve Bank on Wednesday notified the inclusion of retail and wholesale trade under the micro, small and medium enterprises (MSME) category.

This will help retail and wholesale trade benefit from priority sector lending under RBI guidelines.

Earlier on July 2, the Ministry of Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises had decided to include retail and wholesale trade under MSMEs for the limited purpose of priority sector lending.

The revised guidelines will benefit 2.5 crore retail and wholesale traders. The move would also allow them to register on the Udyam portal for MSMEs.

Meanwhile, the RBI on Tuesday had said it has launched the latest round of its quarterly Order Books, Inventories and Capacity Utilisation Survey (OBICUS) of the manufacturing sector, results of which are used in monetary policy formulation.

The Reserve Bank (RBI) has been conducting the OBICUS of the manufacturing sector on a quarterly basis since 2008.

"The survey provides valuable input for monetary policy formulation," the RBI said while announcing the launch of 54th round of the survey.

The information collected in the survey includes quantitative data on new orders received during the reference quarter, backlog of orders at the beginning of the quarter, pending orders, total inventories with a breakup between finished goods (FG), work-in-progress (WiP) and raw material (RM) inventories, among others.

During this quarter, selected manufacturing companies will be approached by the RBI. The RBI will later release the results pertaining to the January-March 2021 quarter.