Lahore, June 27, 2018 (PPI-OT): The Small and Medium Enterprises Development Authority (SMEDA) has facilitated an investment of over Rs. 29.73 billion during last decade through handholding of the upcoming SMEs and up-gradation of 27 existing SME clusters by providing them common facility centers of worth Rs. 2.772 billion as PSDP projects. It was observed by Mr. Sher Ayub Khan today at a meeting held in SMEDA head office to celebrate the “World SME Day”. He appreciated the United Nations General Assembly for designating 27th June as the International Day of SMEs.
He observed that 95 per cent of the enterprises in the world belonged to micro, small and medium-sized businesses, which account for about 60 per cent of the private sector employment. These enterprises can in fact become the engines that sustain growth for long-term development in developing countries, he said and expressed gratitude to the International Council for Small Business (ICSB), who declared 27th June as a World SME Day last year during its 61st Annual World Conference held at United Nations.
SMEDA CEO said that like rest of the world, SMEs were playing pivotal role in creating job opportunities in Pakistan as well. SMEDA is pursuing the SME development cause as a key economic reform agenda of the country like many governments around the world, he said adding that there exist a number of SME development organizations around the world that have played a major role in supporting, steering and coordinating SME development in their countries.
Small and Medium Business Administration (SMBA), Republic of Korea, KOSGEB, Republic of Turkey, Small Business Administration (SBA), USA are spending heavy budget on the SME Development agenda. But, the resources given to SMEDA has no comparison with them, he commented and informed that SMEDA, due to scarcity of funds, had covered the development side through Public Sector Development Program and a set of over two dozen Common Facility Centers had been completed through PSDP funds.
Giving reasons for SMEDA’s entrance into Public Sector Development Program, CEO SMEDA informed that SMEDA, through interaction with stakeholders of SME sectors, had identified certain potential clusters of SMEs, which were unable to tap export market despite surplus production, just due to unavailability of the modern technology.
For instance the Mango growing cluster of Multan was wasting tons of the mangoes every year for having no pulp plant, Football production of Sialkot was loosing world market due to unavailability of the mechanized football manufacturing technology and Kunri’s abundant production of Chillies were being contaminated for having no mechanical dehydration facility, he said adding that in fact, such technologies were not affordable to the SMEs due to heavy cost. Therefore, SMEDA, with the support of federal Ministry of Industries and Production, came forward and accomplished the hard task by establishing common facility centers for over 20 export oriented clusters of SMEs across the country.
For more information, contact:
DGM (Admin. and PR)
Small and Medium Enterprises Development Authority (SMEDA)
4th Floor, Building No.3, Aiwan-e-Iqbal Complex,
Egerton Road, Lahore
Tel: +92-42-111-111-456
Fax: +92-42-36304926-7
Email: aligohar@smeda.org.pk, helpdesk@smeda.org.pk
Website: www.smeda.org.pk