Twenty million dollars Multi-Donor Trust Fund (MDTF) funded project for the Economic Revitalisation of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Fata (ERKF) was formally launched in KP component here on Monday. In this connection, Small and Medium Enterprise Development Authority (Smeda) held a presentation for the members of Tribal Area Chamber of Commerce and Industry (TACCI), with Vice President, Federation of Pakistan Chamber of Commerce and Industry (FPCCI), Zubair Ali in the chair.
Provincial Chief, Smeda, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Javed Iqbal Khattak and ERKF Project Manager Sarmad Hussein Khan gave presentation on the project to the participants. A large number of industrialists and traders from Fata/Pata attended the presentation. In their presentations, Provincial Chief Smeda and ERKF Project Manager told the business community from Fata/Pata that the project was a joint initiative for Government of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Fata Secretariat and would cater to the economic rehabilitation needs resulting from the militancy crisis as identified for this region under the recently completed Post Crisis Needs Assessment (PCNA).
They said the objective of the project was the revitalisation of the private sector in insurgency affected regions through direct support for the Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs), attracting investments from the diaspora, and institutional capacity building including regulatory reforms.
The project is funded under MDTF and will be executed by the World Bank through Smeda, the Department of Industries, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Fata Secretariat. In the project, the SME Development component of the Project has an allocation of dollars 14 million with a share of dollars 9.1 million and dollars 4.9 million for FATA respectively. The SME Development component will be implemented by Smeda and spadework for this challenging activity has already been started.
There are three subcomponents of the grant programme; Rehabilitation, Up-gradation support and Capacity Building & business development. The rehabilitation component will provide direct support to the affected SMEs in the form of matching grants to the eligible enterprises, which may be used as working capital for reconstruction of basic infrastructure and acquiring, repairing machinery and equipment etc.
The subcomponent of the up-gradation will support the up-gradation of SMEs for improving business productivity and efficiency. Matching grants to eligible individual SMEs for project, as well as group of SMEs for cluster development programmes will be provided. These grants could be used for technological innovation, products development, adopting new packaging/labelling requirements, establishing common facility centres (CFCs) etc Funds may be used for both capital investment and working capital.
The sub-component of capacity building and business development will support capacity building of SMEs in partnership with the Business Edge Programme of International Finance Corporation (IFC) and through procurement of business development services (BDS) required by the SMEs.
Under the programme, a maximum amount of Rs 2.5 million will be given to the affected SMEs under the head of Rehabilitation grant; one million in head of Up-gradation grant to individuals and upto Rs five million to cluster groups; BDS & Capacity building support of Rs 0.3 million in the shape of matching grants to affected SMEs.
The grant application forms are available on the website of Smeda as well as office of Smeda in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Sarhad Chamber. In addition to Smeda offices the forms are also available at Project Management Units (PMUs) at Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Fata and the designated branches of the Habib Bank Limited. In order to facilitate SMEs from Fata, the forms have also been placed at the offices of Political Agents. After detailed presentations traders and industrialists from Fata/Pata asked different questions regarding the project and the senior officials replied them till the complete satisfaction.
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