New Delhi: The government on Tuesday announced setting up of hubs to promote exports through e-commerce medium in public-private-partnership (PPP) mode.

Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said that these hubs, under a seamless regulatory and logistic framework, will facilitate trade and export-related services under one roof. "To enable MSMEs (micro, small and medium enterprises) and traditional artisans to sell their products in international markets, e-commerce export hubs will be set up in PPP mode," she said. Commerce Secretary Sunil Barthwal has recently said that a regulatory framework to push the country's exports through e-commerce medium is expected to be ready by September. At present, India's exports through this medium are only about $5 billion compared to China's $300 billion, annually. There is a potential to take it to $50-100 billion in the coming years.

Through these hubs, small producers will be facilitated to sell to aggregators and then that aggregator will find markets to sell. Export products which hold huge potential include jewellery, apparel, handicrafts and ODOP (one district one product) goods.