MULTAN, Nov 27th: Chief Manager of the State Bank of Pakistan (SBP)Multan Sarfraz Ahmed Nadeem has said the small and medium enterprises (SMEs) sector was resilient and it held the potential and capability to boost the country’s economy.“This sector could not produce desired results in the past due to financing issues; Growth without SMEs is impossible.He was delivering his speech in a seminar on promotion of SMEs banking jointly organised by the State Bank of Pakistan and the Multan Chamber of Commerce and Industry (MCCI) here today.He said the central bank’s initiatives to support the SME financing were focused on improving regulatory framework through revising prudential regulations, strengthening secured transactions framework and introduction of the SME targets. Sarfraz Nadeem said that has set a target of increasing financial inclusion of SMEs from the current six to eight per cent to 17 per cent by 2020 so that these businesses could achieve better growth and development.SBP Chief Manager said that only six per cent SMEs were currently availing loans from banks despite the fact that 40 per cent of them have a relationship with banks. She said that SBP has launched 9 financing schemes for SMEs at 6 per cent markup to facilitate their expansion and growth. He said that for this purpose, regulatory framework and taxation system would be simplified for SMEs. He said that the current government was taking a keen interest in promoting SMEs and hoped that a maximum number of SMEs should avail these schemes for fast growth and development.On the occasion Multan Chamber of Commerce and Industry Vice President, Muhammad Amjad Sheikh said that There are 3 to 3.2 million SMEs in Pakistan and these are the backbone of our economy as they constituted over 90 per cent of total business enterprises in Pakistan. He said SMEs contributed 30 per cent to GDP, 25 per cent to exports and 78 per cent to industrial employment that showed their important role in the economic development of the country. He said the tough collateral conditions of banks were a major hurdle for SME growth and urged the SBP to ask banks to offer soft term credit facility to SMEs that would help them to grow fast and play an effective role in strengthening the economy.MCCI Vice President Muhammad Amjad Sheikh said that strengthening SMEs would yield multiple benefits for the economy as it would promote trade and industrial activities, enhance exports, encourage investment, create more jobs and increase tax revenue of the government. Director SBP Imran Sadaf and Assistant Director Junaid Tariq said that Now SME can apply for loan merely on simple paper upto Rs.2 million for the period of seven to 10 years only on six % mark-up. They said the policy focused on improving regulatory framework, upscaling microfinance banks, risk mitigating strategies, simplifying procedures for the SME financing, program-based lending and value chain financing, capacity building and creating awareness, handholding, leveraging technology, and making taxation regime easier.The seminar was also attended by Rashid Iqbal,Mian Iqbal Hassan, Sheikh Nadeem Ahmed, Aurangzeb Alamgir, Chairperson women entrepreneurs Sub Committee,Syeda Sarwat Zahra,Khawaja Muhammad Farooq,Shazia Hashmi, Khurram Javed Butt and Ikram Arain
Tags:
Banks