Kerala Finance Minister KN Balagopal has said the State is promoting entrepreneurship as part of its endeavour to be a major manufacturing hub and to cash in on the growing internal trade and services in the country.

Addressing the inaugural function of the Kerala Pavilion at the 41st India International Trade Fair in New Delhi, the minister said the State is planning to create one lakh new enterprises this year to make more products of Kerala flavour.

Kerala has unique products based on tourism, sports and local artisans and the State is focused on marketing them nationally, the minister said.

“We are planning for 6 million new SMEs this year and to start 1 lakh new enterprises...In every village, we are trying to create more and more entrepreneurs. We are advocating for them,” Balagopal said.

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He urged Union Commerce and Industry Minister Piyush Goyal to organise more trade fairs in different parts of the country to market locally-made things nationally.

“It is easy to produce something, but marketing is a difficult job. So, we need more fairs to market our locally-made things. We are requesting the Union Minister to set up such trade fairs in different parts of the country. Like the slogan says, we have to be vocal about the local things,” said Balagopal.

The Kerala Pavilion at the trade fair houses around 30 stalls displaying agricultural, herbal, handloom, ayurvedic, spices and textile products. Kerala and Uttar Pradesh are participating as Focus States in the trade fair. Bihar, Jharkhand and Maharashtra are partner States.

This year’s theme of the trade fair is ‘Vocal For Local, Local to Global’.

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