Karachi: To lift Small and Medium Enterprises’ growth trajectory and to revise the SME policy the Ministry of Industries and Production (MoI&P) has constituted a high-level steering committee with the Small and Medium Enterprises Development Authority (SMEDA) as its secretariat.
The MoI&P is being provided technical assistance by the USAID’s SME activity project.
The terms of reference (ToR) of the Steering Committee (SC) are to develop national SME definition, identify and recommend key areas for legal and regulatory reforms and besides others to address the access to finance issues, ensure sustainable growth and institutionalize SME support system to ensure regular communication between the national, provincial and local governments.
In addition to the above it will develop short, medium and long term action plans and above all finalize the new draft SME policy to be implemented in accordance with the priorities.
The minister for industries and production will be the chairman and secretaries of Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) and others included in the SC are the additional secretaries of finance, commerce, planning, science and technology.
It has also included the chairman Securities and Exchange Commission of Pakistan (SECP) and deputy governor of State Bank of Pakistan as members of the committee.
From the private sector the presidents of Federation of Chamber of Commerce, Karachi, Lahore, KP, Quetta and the president of the Women Chamber of Commerce.
Other private sector representatives on the SC are Zulfikar Thaver president Union of Small and Medium Enterprises (UNISAME), Engineer M.A. Jabbar, Nauman Wazir Khattak and Khawar Anwar Khawaja.
Thaver said he is impressed by the clause in the ToR which states the SC will define the role of different stakeholders in SME support, including federal ministers, private sector SMEs and organizations, academia and NGOs adopting a least intervention government approach.
He thanked the USAID for their support and technical help and the MoI&P for the initiative.
He said it will be our humble request to the new elected government to strengthen SMEDA to enable it to meet the challenges.