8th Pakistan SME Forum To Highlight Sector Requirements

The Union of Small and Medium Enterprises (UNISAME) invited the attention of the convener 8th Pakistan SME Forum to be held at a local hotel on 19th August 2014 to emphasize and highlight the requirements of the sector for the attention of the policy makers to make it meaningful.

President UNISAME Zulfikar Thaver urged Menin Rodrigues the chairman of Shamrock Conferences the organizers of the 8th Pakistan SME Forum to pinpoint the requirements of the sector and demand priority for the sector for rapid and fast track growth of the sector.

Thaver appreciated the role of the Small and Medium Enterprises Development Authority (SMEDA) in the SME promotion and development but called upon the policy makers to strengthen SMEDA and widen its scope to enable it to reach the SMEs all over the country.

He also appreciated the role of the State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) and said the SBP has made earnest efforts to facilitate the SMEs in services, trade and industry and subsidized finance for them to promote the sector. The SBP has introduced warehouse receipt financing, crop insurance, SME guarantee insurance and reduced the rate of export refinance.

He said the government is taking positive steps for special economic zones and developing industrial estates for SMEs but invited the attention of the provincial and federal governments to load shedding and law and order which are hampering industrialization.

He suggested alternate energy promotion and the setting up of SME Police liaison committee (SME-PLC) in all the districts to liaison between the SMEs and the law enforcing agencies.

The Union has urged the government to facilitate the SMEs with leasing facilities to enable the SMEs purchase property on installments.

Salman Merchant convener Unisame e-Commerce said the importance of e-Commerce needs to be highlighted and SMEs need to be educated in e-Commerce for online trading. e-Commerce is catching on and Unisame wishes to propagate the benefits of e-Commerce at the 8th Pakistan SME Forum said Salman.

UNISAME appreciated the role of Shamrock Conference and said it has played an important role for the last several years by giving an opportunity to stakeholders to recommend SME promotion and development at their conferences regularly.

Posted in: Press Releases