SMEs constitute 40 percent of total GDP: Abbas

The small and medium enterprises (SMEs) have a big role in socio-economic development as it constitutes 95 percent of the total enterprises of the country, besides it employ about 80 percent of total non-agriculture workforce and 40 percent of the total GDP to Pakistan comes from these enterprises, said Abbas Mehdi, Regional Business Co-ordinator of Small and Medium Enterprises Development Authority (Smeda) here on Thursday.
"SMEs, if given incentives and facilities would earn a good foreign exchange for country's exchequer in the shape of export of products", Mehdi said while talking to Business Recorder.
He stressed the need of development of SMEs in the country saying that this sector would help eliminate major problems like unemployment, poverty and raise the living standard of people across the country.
Talking on bottlenecks and problems of the SMEs, Mehdi said that lack of information on local and export market is main hurdle to the small and medium enterprises in establishment besides weak support infrastructure.
He said that low technology base, limited human resource and skill development facilities and slow rate in enterprise creation are causing problems for SMEs.
He was of the view that limited access to formal credit and low value addition were also obstacle in development of small and medium enterprises in the country.
Talking on role of Smeda he said that authority is providing information and technical know how to the entrepreneurs and facilitation to new business start-ups in different sectors. Smeda, he said has played an effective role in the development of the small and medium enterprises sector in the country, which would definitely deliver in shape of eradication of poverty and unemployment. Besides it would help raise the living standard of people and increase their income, he added.
Mehdi said that every SME is providing employment to more than 200 people directly and indirectly which means a big contribution in absorbing huge work force.
He called upon skilled people to come forward and start their small businesses in spite of running after jobs.