Multi-Donor Trust Fund (MDTF), a funded project with $20 million launched in Sarhad Chamber of Commerce & Industry (SCCI), for the Economic Revitalisation of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Fata (ERKF). In this connection, President, SCCI, Afan Aziz and a large number of traders and industrialists of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa attended the ceremony.
Beside, president, SCCI, others who spoke on the occasion were included Member Smeda Board of Directors, Adeel Rauf; former SCCI president, Riaz Arshad; and Vice President, SCCI, Zia-ul-Haq Sarhadi while Provincial Chief Smeda, Javed Iqbal Khattak gave a detailed presentation on the project.
He said that ERKF project is a joint initiative for government of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Fata Secretariat and will cater to the economic rehabilitation needs resulting from the militancy crisis as identified for this region under the recently completed Post Crisis Needs Assessment (PCNA).
The project, he said, will help in the revitalisation of the private sector in insurgency affected regions through direct support for the Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs), attracting investments from the diaspora, and institutional capacity building including regulatory reforms.
The project is funded under MDTF and will be executed by the World Bank through Smeda, the Department of Industries, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Fata Secretariat.
In the project, the SME development component of the project has an allocation of US $14 million with a share of $9.1 million and $4.9 million for Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Fata respectively. The SME development component will be implemented by Smeda and spadework for this challenging activity has already been started.
There are three sub-components of the grant programme that are rehabilitation, up-gradation support and capacity building & business development. The rehabilitation component will provide direct support to the affected SMEs in the form of matching grants to the eligible enterprises, which may be used as working capital for reconstruction of basic infrastructure and acquiring, repairing machinery and equipment etc.
The subcomponent of the up-gradation will support the up-gradation of SMEs for improving business productivity and efficiency. Matching grants to eligible individual SMEs for project, as well as group of SMEs for cluster development programmes will be provided. These grants could be used for technological innovation, products development, adopting new packaging/labelling requirements, establishing common facility centres (CFCs) etc. Funds may be used for both capital investment and working capital.
The sub-component of capacity building and business development will support capacity building of SMEs in partnership with the Business Edge Program of International Finance Corporation (IFC) and through procurement of business development services (BDS) required by the SMEs.
Under the program a maximum amount of Rs 2.5 million will be given to the affected SMEs in head of Rehabilitation grant; one million in head of Up-gradation grant to individuals and upto Rs 5 million to cluster groups; BDS & Capacity building support of Rs 0.3 million in the shape of matching grants to affected SMEs.
The grant application forms are available on the website of SMEDA as well as office of Smeda Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Sarhad Chamber. In addition to Smeda offices the forms are also available at Project Management Units (PMUs) at Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Fata and the designated branches of the Habib Bank Limited.
In order to facilitate SMEs from Fata, the forms have also been placed at the offices of political agents.