Amazon India launches first Digital Kendra in Surat

Amazon India today announced the opening of the country's first Digital Kendra in Surat, Gujarat. It was launched in one of Surat's most important MSME clusters and will be serving thousands of MSMEs.

Speaking at the launch, Amit Agarwal said “Last year at Smbhav, we had announced that Amazon will invest $1 billion in India to help digitize 10 million Indian MSMEs by 2025. And today, we take one more important step towards that goal as we open our first Amazon Digital Kendra in Surat, Gujarat."

"This is an earnest endeavor to bring the right tools, support, and services infrastructure closer to where MSMEs are based and help them benefit from ecommerce. Amazon Digital Kendra will help MSMEs grow their business with the adoption of technology and play an even more important role in the revival and growth of the Indian economy,” he added.

In a virtual event, Shri Vijay Rupani, Hon'ble Chief Minister of Gujarat, was joined by Amit Agarwal, Senior VP and Country Head, Amazon India, and Manish Tiwary, VP, Amazon India, to inaugurate the first Amazon Digital Kendra.

The Hon'ble Chief Minister of Gujarat said that “I would like to congratulate Amazon India for having taken this initiative that will help equip MSMEs with the right knowledge, skills, and support to benefit from technology adoption and ecommerce. This is even more important as MSMEs look at reviving and rebuilding their businesses from after the recent challenges."

"Initiatives like these have a multiplier effect in enabling our MSMEs to play a big role in taking India towards its vision of being a $5 trillion economy. We need to empower and enable MSMEs to play an even stronger role in the Indian economy going forward. I am also happy that the first Amazon Digital Kendra has come up here in Surat, which is home to thousands of MSMEs and traders. I am sure they will be benefitted by becoming digital entrepreneurs," he added.

The Digital Kendra will provide micro-small and medium enterprises (MSMEs) the opportunity to learn about the benefits of eCommerce and avail a range of third party services such as shipping and logistics support, cataloging assistance, digital marketing services, GST, and taxation support to kick start their journey towards being digital entrepreneurs. 

Furthermore, the company will engage the local partners as well for managing the Kendra. Besides, it will offer the local partners additional revenue streams, understanding the exports markets, and offer MSMEs the tools to grow their business.

MSMEs will further visit the Amazon Digital Kendra the third party to obtain services such as eCommerce training, GST and taxation assistance, shipping and logistics assistance, cataloging assistance, and digital marketing services, among others.

On the other hand, MSMEs will have access to onboarding services and other Amazon facilities such as Amazon Global Selling, Amazon Pay, Amazon Karigar, Amazon Saheli ‘I Have Space,' ‘Amazon Easy,' and so on.

Amazon announced three significant commitments last year at the inaugural Smbhav Summit: 1.Digitally enable 10 million MSMEs

2. Enable $10 billion in eCommerce exports, and

3. Create 1 million additional jobs in India between 2020 and 2025.

The company is on track to meet these commitments, having already digitized 2.5 million MSMEs, enabled $3 billion in cumulative exports, and assisted in the creation of nearly 1 million jobs in India to date, including 300,000 direct and indirect jobs since January 2020.

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