Economic and Financial Analyst, Ateeq Ur Rehman has expressed concern on day by day declining position of Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs ) of the country and urged the government to take immediate steps for the redressel of the grievances.
He expressed fear that SME vendor operating throughout the country and supplying the material to the industries will collapse bringing the unemployment level as increased and manifold. On daily basis, our leading industries are closing down their different shifts which mean they are offloading 3000 to 4000 employees on daily wages and contractual workers, he added.
He said that the SME vendors of the non production days coupled with closure of industries are continuously absorbing their losses in most of the cases alone and themselves due to increase in cost of doing business by rupee depreciation against dollar, high interest rates, high customs duties, additional sales tax, high cost of raw material, exorbitant utility charges etc.
He added that the decline of more than 30% in the rupee value against USD and 100% rise in interest rate in span of just 12 months has shocked SMEs leading to self destruction and into an alarming stage. Here, SMEs face much difficulty in access to finance being cost of borrowing is huge and faces the wrong allegation of being non performer. This is not true in any case rather the fact is that they get no financial support from banks and increase in markup is making thing worse to them day by day.
Ateeq claimed that the solution of our economic crisis is in realizing the importance of the SMEs and their challenges. Far East like China, Thailand and Vietnam are the biggest examples of enormous improvement and great magnitude of development only because of focusing attention to the SMEs of their country.
Ateeq said that the SMEs are the backbone of the country and of great significance and urged government should take immaculate steps to restore their lost confidence by compensating their shortfalls through some provisions and allowances for minimum 3 time meals for their survival and sustention of lives.
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