'Prime Minister's development package to bring prosperity in Southern Punjab'

Chief Executive Officer of Small & Medium Enterprises Development Authority (Smeda), Yousaf Naseem Khokhar has said that Prime Minister's development package would bring prosperity, stability and economic growth in Southern Punjab and a new era of progress and prosperity would be heralded.
Delivering his speech at a reception hosted in his honour by chairman of APBUMA, Khawaja Jalaluddin Roomi, former Punjab Minister for Industries here on Sunday, he said that regional office of Smeda would be established in Multan for the promotion of SMEs in Multan, Bahawalpur and Dera Ghazi Khan divisions. He also said an expo centre and business display centre would be set up in the city to attract foreign buyers.
He said that importance of SME sector could not be over emphasised in the industrial development of a country as these constitute nearly 90 percent of all enterprises in Pakistan, employ 80 percent of non-agricultural labour force and their share in the annual GDP is approximately 40 percent. However, unlike large enterprises in the formal sector, a small and medium enterprise is constrained by financial and other resources. This inherent characteristic of an SME makes it imperative that there should be a mechanism through which it may get support in different functions of business including technical upgradation, marketing, financial and human resource training & development, he elaborated.
About Smeda, Khokhar said that it is the flagship organisation of Pakistan, which is providing necessary services to help SMEs overcome weaknesses that are endogenous to their very nature. It is an autonomous body working under the umbrella of the ministry of industries & production and contributing towards growth and development of SMEs in Pakistan. This it does through the creation of a conducive and enabling regulatory environment, development of industrial clusters and provision of business development services in all areas of business management.
CEO Smeda said that the authority also carries out comprehensive analyses of international trends, national policies and other macroeconomic factors affecting SMEs in Pakistan for a gradual progress towards creation of a favourable business environment for its key clients -SMEs of Pakistan. 'At the same time, we also interact with the SMEs working in industrial sectors such as agriculture, fisheries, textiles, handloom weaving, transport, leather, marble & granite, carpets and light engineering. This interaction takes place at the individual as well as collective level to provide proactive and responsive financial, technical, management and marketing services to SMEs, he maintained.
In the policy level support, problems relating to any government department or government policy/regulation are studied and if found valid, are advocated with concerned authorities. At the institutional level, Smeda provides support to SMEs by creating networking amongst the concerned stakeholders or by directly starting development projects in the clusters.
Dilating, Khokhar said that such projects might include establishing a training institute, building a common facility centre, building a model plant with state-of-the-art technology for SMEs to emulate through reverse engineering. These projects also include upgrading technology in a particular industrial sector and starting a program-lending scheme for this purpose in collaboration with the financial institutions.
Up till now, Smeda has been involved in cluster development projects in the areas of boat modification in marine fishery sector, credit for auto vendors, carpet weaving, marble & granite, dates & apple processing, wooden furniture, leather garments, ceramic kilns, cotton ginning and glass bangles cluster besides developing clusters of ginning technology up-gradation, programme lending for power-looms, computer aided design centre (Common Facility Centre-Sialkot), designing institute for garments (Peshawar), accessories sector study, development of handloom cluster, establishment of cool-chain agriculture export processing zone, fruit processing facility, assistance to set-up horticulture export board, revitalisation of 'Sunflo Cit-Russ' for citrus cluster development, and apple treatment plant in Balochistan.
In his address, Khawaja Muhammad Jalaluddin Roomi said that Smeda should upgrade and expand its office in Multan to facilitate SMEs of Southern Punjab. He said that Multan is a hub of traditional products and dyed yarn but there is no access to its markets.
He stressed that a business display centre should be established in Multan like Gujranwala and Sialkot. He complained that this project was deliberately delayed. He also demanded implementation of small cottage village and industrial cluster in the industrial estate of Multan.
The reception was attended by Vice Chancellor of BZU University Zafarullah Khan, Commissioner Multan Syed Muhammad Ali Gardezi, DCO Khurram Ali Agha, President of MCCI Shahid Naseem Khokhar, Chairman of Dryport Trust, Syed Muhammad Ahsan shah, NPO's CEO Khawaja Muhammad Yousaf, Chairman of Oil-mills Association Khawaja Muhammad Fazil, Malik Asrar Ahmed Awan Ex-President MCCI, Ata Shafi Tanvir, Khawaja Muhammad Farooq, Begum Khaula Amjad Sheikh and editors of local and national dailies.