LAHORE - Advisor to Prime Minister on Commerce, Textile, Industry, Production and Investment Razak Dawood has appreciated services of the Small and Medium Enterprises Development Authority (SMEDA) for promoting SMEs in the country.

While exchanging his views with SMEDA management team led by its CEO Sher Ayub Khan, the Advisor asked SMEDA to identify high-potential sectors of SMEs and devise respective development strategies to create new opportunities for employment generation and export promotion in the country. He advised that the development strategies should offer equitable business prospects for all provinces of the country. The mineral sector in Balochistan and the tourism sector in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa should be focused exclusively for development on modern lines, he added.

Razak Dawood acknowledged that SMEs were the backbone of Pakistan’s economy and the present government was determined to promote an entrepreneurship culture in the country through SME development. Hence, SMEDA has an important role to play in achieving economic agenda of the government, he said and assured to develop conducive policies for facilitating ease of doing business. He advised SMEDA to develop viable policy proposals to help SMEs access finance, technology upgradation and also provide support for creating market linkages. To lay down realistic policies for SMEs, he asked SMEDA to review the number of SMEs location-wise across the country and also revisit the definition of SMEs in consultation with eminent economists and stakeholders of the SME sector.

Earlier, SMEDA CEO Sher Ayyub Khan apprised the Advisor about services, products and projects undertaken by SMEDA for SME promotion. He informed that SMEDA had facilitated an investment of over Rs. 29.73 billion during last decade through handholding of SMEs and upgradation of existing SME clusters by providing them common facility centers financed through the Public Sector Development Program.

He further informed that SMEDA, through interaction with SME sector stakeholders, had identified certain potential clusters of SMEs, which were unable to tap export market despite surplus production, due to unavailability of modern technology. He shared details of the Agro Food Processing Facility Multan, set up for producing mango pulp and Sports Industries Development Center, Sialkot that had been set up to produce world class mechanized sports balls. He shared that the common facility centers set-up by SMEDA were providing the local clusters with access to technology and training to develop a new breed of skilled labor.

SMEDA CEO assured of developing new development strategies as per directions of Razak Dawood and expedite the process of revising the SME policy-2007.