Advisor to the Prime Minister on Finance and Revenue, Shaukat Tarin, stated on Thursday that the Small and Medium Enterprises Development Authority (SMEDA) needed to be financially and administratively autonomous with a greater private sector role.

He made these remarks while chairing a meeting held at Finance Division to deliberate on how to revitalize SMEDA.

The Advisor advised SMEDA to consider investment in offering credit guarantees, venture capital, setting up small and medium enterprises (SMEs), subcontracting houses, and SME Special Economic Zones through the Rs. 30 billion SME fund committed for the authority.

Highlighting the vision of Prime Minister Imran Khan to revitalize the SMEs for the economic and social development of Pakistan, Tarin said the revitalization and strengthening of SMEDA and SME Bank were essential to achieve the targets of SME policy. He termed SMEs as the backbone of Pakistan’s economy.

CEO SMEDA gave a presentation on the functions and performance of the organization and briefed the Advisor on the challenges facing it. He also shared the way forward to meet the challenges and further enhance performance.

Present in the meeting, Federal Minister for Industries and Production, Makhdoom Khusro Bakhtiar, said the recently announced SME policy was a key government initiative for sustainable and inclusive economic growth. He said that SMEDA, being the only federal government organization for SME development, needed to be further strengthened for the growth of this sector.

The Minister stressed improved involvement of the private sector in SMEDA, announcing that his Ministry would soon propose necessary amendments to the SMEDA Ordinance 2002.

Source: Pro Pakistani