SMEDA marks World MSME Day: ‘SME development ultimate solution of economic challenges’

LAHORE: Federal Minister for Industries and Production Makhdoom Syed Murtaza Mehmood, while addressing the World MSME Day celebration ceremony organized by the Small and Medium Enterprises Development Authority (SMEDA) on Tuesday has said that SME development is the ultimate solution of the economic challenges to be faced by the country, and the government is committed to create an ecosystem of conducive policies and facilities for rapid growth of SMEs. The ceremony was attended by a large number of the government and private sector’s representatives including presidents of the country’s Chambers of Commerce and Industries and trade associations of the SME sector.

Farman Aziz Khawaja, Chief Executive Officer SMEDA and Nadia Jehangir Seth, GM Policing Planning Division SMEDA also addressed the ceremony.

Federal Minister Industries acknowledged SMEDA services for development of the SMEs informed that Finance Department had also appreciated SMEDA suggestions to boost SME sector that has been made part of the recent federal budget.

He said that the present government has the fullest cognizance on significance of the SME sector that is why, despite the challenging macro-economic environment, over the course of the past one year, facilitating rapid growth in the SME sector has been an important element of our government’s economic development strategy.

He said that a lot of the facilities and incentives have been introduced in the budget for SMEs. Now, SMEs should be provided with a single window where they should have access to all facilities under one roof. Our vision for SME development is to provide an enabling business and investment environment with ease of tax and regulatory compliance, and easy sustainable access to credit, he said and informed that government is undertaking a concerted effort to promote industrialization, innovation, enterprise development and export growth.

Furthermore, he said, the government has taken numerous steps to support SMEs in the country through its public institutional support infrastructure. Today you see before yourselves, a reinvigorated SMEDA that is poised to play a central role in leading the government’s SME development agenda forward, he added.

Earlier CEO SMEDA Farhan Aziz Khawaja, in his address of welcome, highlighted the services, projects and programs for SME development being undertaken by SMEDA. He informed that bring the part of global community of SMEs, we are celebrating the World MSME Day as per announcement of the United Nations Organization. June 27th is a day dedicated to honoring Micro, Small, and Medium-sized Enterprises (MSMEs) as per decision of the UNO since 2017.

He said that SMEDA is dedicated to achieve the SME development goals determined by the government by ensuring implementation on the SME oriented initiatives including regulatory and tax reforms, improved access to finance, human resource and skill development. He exclusively informed that through the efforts of SMEDA, “Entrepreneurship” has been included in the National Single Curriculum of Pakistan for grades 9-12. This is an important step to promote entrepreneurship culture in our society, right from the school level, he said and that as per government policy, women and youth were also the focus of SME development in SMEDA. For enhancing women-based SMEs, SMEDA, in collaboration with the Asian Development Bank, SMEDA is developing a separate Women Entrepreneurship Policy and Action Plan, he said.

He highlighted a number of initiatives designed by SMEDA for inclusion of youth and women in the SME sector. Besides the PM Youth Loan scheme, IT sector, being a core interest of youth, has been declared as an SME sector, he said and informed that SMEDA is going to initiate new programs for capacity building of youth and women with regard to adding value and technology to the SME sector.

Regarding creation of an ecosystem for facilitation of SME sector, the CEO SMEDA informed that a powerful alliance is being forged with esteemed organizations that share SMEDA vision for SME development. This alliance is being formalized by signing of groundbreaking MOUs with the Federal Tax Ombudsman (FTO), Urban Unit Government of Punjab, Punjab Small Industries Corporation (PSIC), Punjab Information Technology Board (PITB), Government of Gilgit-Baltistan, and Musaliha International Center for Arbitration and Dispute Resolution (MICADR), he added.

The World MSME Day ceremony was concluded with signing of the six separate MoUs with the FTO, PSIC, PITB, MICADR, Urban Unit and the GB government by representatives of the respective organization.

Copyright Business Recorder, 2023