KARACHI: The capacity building of every business is essential and eminent by facilitation from the government, said Ateeq ur Rehman (economic & financial analyst).
“In the past we have seen SMEs, the engine of the economy being neglected awfully thus creating a poor impact on the growth and development of the country. The ongoing scenario, huge energy tariffs have almost crippled the SMEs of the country.
“Unfortunately, it’s not only the difficult access to finance of being facing the big interest rates but also the SME lending with challenging collateral thus damaging the Small Medium Enterprises and Cottage Industry as a whole, said Ateeq.
The access to easy loans to SMEs has to be clean lending with minimum markup without collateral and appropriate return period. To be factual we have seen the success stories of the nations those which are built by the support of SMEs, especially Far East Asian countries like China, Thailand, Philippines, Vietnam and Indonesia are great examples of thumping success only because of SMEs deliverance and ease.
The purpose built SME Sheds, Small Industrial Zones, Economic Zones with one window operation, relaxed energy tariff, gas, water, infrastructure / building / warehouse / storage capacity / silos /cool chains / processing units all are missing for the comfort zone of SMEs. This is very important ignoring this will further damage the SMEs – the back bone of the country’s economy.
In order to promote industrialization and agriculture, we have to attract investment in various sectors including mineral, mining, information technology, fishing, maritime, renewable energy and promote SMEs in such sectors, too.
The women of the country play a pivotal role in the national economy, therefore women empowerment, women entrepreneurship and women self-financing has to be included in the decision making related to the SMEs.
He said that unless we raise the standards for Exports Products like Produce of Pakistan and Made in Pakistan at par with International practices we will not be successful to match the competition. This is only possible once we uplift the SME sector and eliminate their existing problems. To me, the Trade bodies like Federation and Chambers needs to give importance to small scale manufacturers, traders, vendors and shop keepers as they are the essential SMEs.
Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif’s direction to authorities for taking measures for the capacity building of SMEs is quite encouraging and his instructions to make SMEs profitable, further their access to easy loans, promotion of SMEs Exports and facilitation of Women in SMEs is a great step boosting profitability of SMEs.
Copyright Business Recorder, 2024