The Centre would announce a special package for the small scale industries before the 2004-05 budget to enable them to face competition in the emerging World Trade Organisation regime.

"The contents of the package have been sent to the prime minister and we are having discussions with the finance ministry and will announce it before the budget," Union Small Scale Industries Minister C P Thakur said, addressing the National Convention of Biotechnology, in Mumbai.

The government was also deliberating to provide cheaper credit to the SSI sector to improve their efficiency against the global competitors who have access to much cheaper credit, he said.

It was also mulling to give some grant and concessions to the SSI sector for upgradation of the technology, he said, adding that the implementation of the credit guarantee scheme to help people without collateral to become entrepreneurs would also be looked into.

He said the package was necessary as the government had to dereserve certain items from the SSI list under the WTO.

More and more companies should come in the biotechnology field if it had to compete globally, Thakur said, adding that indigenous technology should be developed instead of relying on research in the United States and Canada.

He said the government is looking ahead in frontier areas of biotechnology and has identified nano-technology, bio-instrumentation and bio-engineering as emerging areas.