Pakistan Businessmen and Intellectuals Forum (PBIF) President Mian Zahid Hussain has asked the government to announce special incentives package for the Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) sector in the next budget. He said that the sector having 40 percent share in the GDP, 30 percent share in exports and providing employment to thousands of people could not be ignored.
Speaking to business community here on Tuesday, he said that out of 3.5 million SMEs in Pakistan, 65 percent were located in Punjab while slightly over 2 percent were in Balochistan, which could be balanced through policy interventions.
He said that law and order, energy crisis, lack of regulatory support, incoherent laws, deficiency of market information and skilled labour besides want of finances were the main reasons behind lacklustre performance of the SME sector.
Mian Zahid said that defaults compelled lenders to rethink SME financing, as the default ratio of corporate sector stood at 13 percent.
He noted that textile and garments sector had emerged as a biggest defaulter which failed to meet 50 percent of its financial obligations.
He also called for reviving textile sector, which was finding it difficult to compete with China, India, Bangladesh and Vietnam, besides the spinning capacity of the country had declined by 30 percent, enough to catch the attention of the policymakers.
Mian Zahid asked the banks to revisit their policy of ignoring SMEs and chalk out an effective plan to develop this critical sector to reduce poverty and unemployment in the country.
Comments
Comments are closed.