Govt approves five new SME development projects

LAHORE: The government has granted approval of five new SME development projects proposed by the Small and Medium Enterprises Development Authority (SMEDA), under the Public Sector Development Program 2017-18, with a cost of Rs 3.2 billion.

While addressing a meeting at SMEDA head office, Chief Executive Officer SMEDA, Mr Sher Ayub Khan expressed deep gratitude to the ministry of industries and production for seeking approval as well as allocation of funds for the projects.

The projects include National Business Development Program for SMEs (all over Pakistan), Product Development Center for Composites based Sports Goods (Sialkot), Fruits, Vegetables and Condiments Processing Center (Naushahro Feroze), Fruit Dehydration Unit (Swat) and Business Skill Development Centers for Women at various locations, CEO said adding that allocations of Rs 250 million, Rs 287.77 million, Rs 321.5 million, Rs 20 million and Rs 28 million had respectively been made by the government for the year 2017-18 under PSDP.

He said that the SMEDA entered into the ambit of PSDP projects in the year 2006 and it had handled a total portfolio of Rs 5798.20 million investment in about 27 PSDP projects so far and completed 19 projects country-wide.

He said that the SMEDA developed projects were being run as Common Facility Centers across the country under the management of Private-Public Partnership.

He said that the projects had provided the various clusters of SMEs with state-of-the art technology, training and capacity building services to meet the international export standards.

He said that the SMEs doing business in fruits processing, foundry, auto vendor industry, light engineering, red chilies, textile spinning and honey production fields had competed the export market because of the SMEDA's Common Facility Centers.

New projects would also enhance the quality and capacity of the SMEs in the concerned clusters he said adding that SMEDA's outreach division was persistently busy to interact with the SME based trade bodies across the county to keep abreast with emerging needs of the various SME clusters to devise supportive projects for them.