The industrial environmental situation in Pakistan needs to be addressed properly and the World Bank was evaluating the scope of its assistance to help Pakistan government promote clean production in the country.
World Bank Industrial Environmental Management Policy mission head Ernesto Sanshez-Triana stated this while talking to Chief Executive Officer of Small and Medium Enterprises Development Authority (Smeda) Shahid Rashid during a discussion in a meeting here on Tuesday.
The mission, comprising task team leader Lead Environmental Specialist Kulsum Ahmed, Lead Economist Dan Biller, and local environment consultant of the World Bank Javaid Afzal, held a meeting with Smeda General Managers Sultan Tiwana, Syed Iqbal A. Kidwai and Muhammad Jameel Afaqi, Deputy General Manager Fayyaz Riaz, Senior Marketing Manager Liaquat Ali Gohar, International Linkages Manager Imran Chaudhry and Training Manager Javaid Afzal.
The mission, he said, had also held discussion with leaders of the Federation of Pakistan Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FPCCI) on this issue. Members of the mission evinced keen interest in the role performed by Smeda for the development of small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in Pakistan.
Smeda CEO Shahid Rashid said that his organisation had completed 10 years of its existence, and he would be glad if some independent agency like the World Bank conducted an analysis of the services rendered by the Smeda during the last decade.
However, he claimed that the Smeda, despite working with a very limited number of human resources, had left a considerable impact on the SME sector in the country. Besides offering various services to the individual SMEs at micro level, the Smeda had been providing valuable services to upgrade potential SME clusters in the country, he said.
He said that development strategies designed by the Smeda, in collaboration with industrial stakeholders were being implemented successfully. He further said that separate companies, set up in private-public partnership, were working hard under the Smeda created strategies for sustainable development of dairy, gem and jewellery, marble an granite, horticulture, hunting and sporting arms and furniture, apart from a lot of work done for development of non-farm rural enterprises under "Aik Hunar, Aik Nagar" (Ahan) project. The mission was also given a briefing on training programmes, to be conducted by the Smeda on clean industrial production.