PAPRA URGED TO EXPEDITE & APPROVE REINSURANCE FOR EXIM BANK

The Financial Daily 22/11/24
The Union of Small and Medium Enterprises (UNISAME) has urged the federal Public Procurement Regulatory Authority (PAPRA) to facilitate Exim Bank with wider re-insurance facilities to enable it to increase its scope and enhance support for SMEs.
President UNISAME Zulfikar Thaver said after investigating the reason for Exim Bank’s low profile it came to our knowledge that PAPRA needs to expedite permissions to Exim Bank for re-insurance to enable it to offer credit guarantee insurance cover to commercial banks to make them comfortable for financing SMEs.
Thaver added that the Exim Bank is presently tied down and not in a position to do extended business and is restricted to limited business due to insufficient radius of re-insurance permission. Wider re-insurance facility is definitely needed to promote exports to global countries and most needed by SMEs to obtain bridge financing from commercial banks he emphasized.
UNISAME Council (UC) members said it is pertinent to note that many SMEs are hesitant to export to many bonafide importers in third world countries due to lack of export credit guarantee insurance.
Commercial banks are not comfortable in discounting bills of exchange for deferred payments but if they are secured by credit guarantee insurance they would discount bills.
The UC members highlighted the importance of ECGI scheme and have urged the State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) and the Small and Medium Enterprises Development Authority (SMEDA) to influence PAPRA to facilitate Exim Bank earnestly and promptly.
The Union chief said we have been requesting SBP, SMEDA, TDAP, MINCOM and MINFIN time and again to take high impact steps to boost exports and fail to understand the lethargy of the policy makers. He said instead of taking effective high impact measures of facilitating the majority SME sector they are causing setbacks by creating impediments like restricting VPN, not setting up SME express portals, increasing taxes and taking step motherly unfriendly and unwise steps.

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