Karachi:The Union of Small and Medium Enterprises (UNISAME) has urged the commercial banks to develop products for SME financing and has sought help from State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) to develop products namely Franchise Financing, Pay as you earn schemes, Export Credit Guarantee Insurance and Financing Consultants and services providers to facilitate the SMEs to set up their business and expand existing businesses.
The National Financial Inclusion Strategy (NFIS) intends to include entrepreneurs and cover all sorts of income generating activities and the SMEs believe the NFIS will resolve their issues. It is our endeavour to ensure that no entrepreneur is deprived of access to finance said Zulfikar Thaver chairman of working group on capacity building under the NFIS Technical Committee (TC). The sector has pinned high hopes in NFIS and would be disappointed if they are not given access to finance.
Thaver who is also the president of UNISAME said the SBP has invited our experts to submit their proposals for discussion tomorrow at a meeting at SBP and our experts namely Dr Shehzad Amin, Asif Hyatt, Asif Ali Khan, Shoaib Mughal and couple of others will place the requirements of the sector.
Thaver said there is unemployment in the country and to overcome the issue the union is emphasizing on self-employment.
The popular brands in Pakistan and overseas in foodstuff, textiles, leather and footwear, restaurants and fast food and general merchandise are inclined to give franchise to SMEs. It is therefore very necessary that Franchise Financing is taken care off to support the entrepreneurs.
Secondly UNISAME will stress on broad based Pay as you earn schemes to enable entrepreneurs to buy shops, offices, workshops and factories and pay as they earn.
Thirdly, the exporters to third world countries need export credit guarantee insurance to enter third world markets for traditional and nontraditional goods.
Fourthly, many doctors, lawyers, engineers and other information technology consultants and training centres are complaining that banks are not inclined to finance them because of inconsistent income. The union will plead their cause at the meeting and will urge the SBP to consider their case and plan some methodology for them.
Newsdesk