UNISAME LAUDS PLANNING MINISTRY EFFORTS FOR SME UPLIFT

A National Consultative Round Table on SME Development Policy and Initiatives has been convened by the Ministry of Planning, Development and Reform (MoPD&R) on 29th July 2015 at Islamabad to discuss Vision 2025 targets for SME sector development, present status, ongoing and planned policy and options for future collaboration.

Dr Faheem ul Islam member private sector development MoPD&R has invited leaders involved in SME development including federal and provincial agencies, State Bank of Pakistan, commercial banks, donor organizations, SMEDA, FPCCI and UNISAME.

Minister PD&R Professor Ahsan Iqbal will participate in the roundtable conference.

Dr Faheem ul Islam in his invitation has stated that Pakistan Vision 2025 seeks to elevate Pakistan’s position from a lower middle income to an upper middle income country through reviving growth and stregthening developmental foundations. This essentially requires the SME sector to become significantly more competitive and export oriented.

President Union of Small and Medium Enterprises (UNISAME) Zulfikar Thaver who will represent the sector at the conference appreciated the efforts of the MoPD&R to uplift the sector and invited the attention of the federal minister PD&R to the urgent need of influencing the finance, commerce, industry and agriculture ministries to align their policies for SME promotion and development.

He said it is important that the MoPD&R co-ordinates with the different ministries for integrated efforts and advises them to gear up for the jump start of the sector on war footings.

Thaver said the SME sector expects priority from the PML-N business friendly government and expects that the government will make doing business easy for the sector and facilitate the sector to meet the global challenges.

Some of the important and urgent steps needed are the one window operation, removal of hurdles and deregulation, facilities for transfer of technology and e-Commerce, providing incentives to new investors, promoting innovative and import substitution industries, alternate energy plants and building of industrial estates.

Thaver said we have been reiterating the need to strengthen SMEDA and hope the MoPD&R will take up the matter with the ministry of industries and onwards to the cabinet. In fact SMEDA must be taken directly under the cabinet division to enable it to function without impediments.

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