BADIN: Governor Sindh Imran Ismail has said that the Small and Medium Enterprises Development Authority (SMEDA) initiatives for developing e-commerce sector in Pakistan can create a number of new jobs and a vast room for export promotion through global e-commerce platforms like Amazon. He was addressing at the signing ceremony of a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) held at governor house Sindh today between SMEDA and a leading e-commerce company “The Extreme Commerce”.
Governor Sindh congratulated the government of Pakistan for the initiative and appreciated the Ministry of Industries and Production for focusing special attention through SMEDA for enabling local SMEs to take the fullest benefits from the global trade opportunities available on Amazon. He said that SMEDA had planned to take special initiatives to develop e-commerce as a full-fledge sector.
CEO SMEDA Hashim Raza, speaking on this occasion, disclosed that SMEDA was going to launch a sustainable program for enhancing access of SMEs to world markets through Amazon and also other leading platforms. He said we are going to take all leading firms supporting E-Commerce into loop to enable SMEs of Pakistan for availing the highest benefits out of the government of Pakistan’s official arrangement with Amazon. The first memorandum of Understanding signed with “Extreme Commerce”, is focused on skills development and capacity building of SMEs on E-Commerce, he added.
CEO Extreme Commerce Mr. Sunny Ali, in his address, said that MOU with SMEDA would empower SMEs to get started for selling their products and services on Amazon and also on other similar platforms. Both the organizations will take collaborative initiatives for providing SMEs with the necessary education and training to digitize their business for reaching out to more customers in the world markets without making huge expenditures on travelling abroad.
Later, CEO SMEDA Hashim Raza and CEO Extreme Commerce signed manuscript of the MOU and wished effective implementation on the mutual aims and objectives. Under the MoU, both the organizations will hold a series of online and offline awareness sessions for SMEs on the benefits of Ecommerce. Similarly skills development programs to fill the gap of shortage of the trained skill force needed for Ecommerce would also be launched. In this regard, all universities of the country are also being persuaded to motivate and support students and fresh graduates for Ecommerce business start-up.