The Small and Medium Enterprises Development Authority (Smeda) would help to upgrade the electric fan manufacturing industry to enhance competitiveness with the regional counterparts. It was agreed by Smeda in a meeting with Pakistan Electric Fan Manufacturers Association (PEFMA) here on Friday. Alamgir Chaudhry, Chief Executive Officer, Smeda presided over the meeting while PEFMA Chairman Muhammad Azhar Aslam led the association's delegation.
Smeda CEO decided to constitute a two-member committee comprising a member from each of the organisation to evolve initiatives for meeting up-gradation's requirements of the fans industry. In this regard, Smeda may also develop an exclusive lending scheme in collaboration with the banking industry for fan manufacturing companies, he added. He was confident that Smeda would be able to attract attention of the financial institutions towards fan industry by designing a commercially viable lending scheme.
Alamgir Chaudhry further said that Smeda has also conducted various training programmes and other development interventions for the fan industry in the past. He disclosed that compliance and certification is the key intervention of Smeda's project "Value Addition in Industry-Cluster Development Approach" which has been included in Vision 2025 of the Government of Pakistan. It will impart significant benefits also on the fan industry, he added.
Chairman PEFMA Azhar Aslam while expressing his views on this occasion stated that there are about 420-450 fan-manufacturing units in Pakistan, majority of which fall in the category of SMEs. The industry is, currently, producing 80 million units and there are 40-50 factories involved in export trade by witnessing total export of worth US 40 million dollars per annum, he added.
He further said that the major export markets of Pakistani fans are, Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Middle East and the African countries. He said that Pakistani fans are very much competitive with India and other countries in international markets but the industry is currently confronting a great challenge from Chinese fans, which may deprive us of the export market if timely measures are not adopted.
He urged Smeda to help up-grade the local fan industry by equipping it with modern technology and improving the compliance and certification systems as per requirement of the international markets. The meeting identified a number of other areas for uplift of the fan industry, which include capacity building, entrepreneurship development, technology up gradation, ERP system, access in export markets by having warehousing facility and creation of a laboratory for ISO 17025.
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