Chairman Pakistan Sports Goods Manufacturers and Exporters Association (PSGMEA) Hasnain Iftikhar Cheema has said that it is encouraging that government is making hectic efforts for bringing big boom in exports and to resolve problems being confronted by the business community across the country.
Talking to Business Recorder on Saturday he said that it is high time that government should formulate a plan for the promotion of SME sector at the grassroots level. The PSGMEA Chairman further said that SME sector is not only backbone of the national economy, but also providing employment to thousands workers. Hasnain suggested that the government should help SME sector in modernization and upgradation of their small scale industrial units and in this regards special step should be taken for extending interest free loans to SMEs enabling them to upgrade their workplaces.
The PSGMEA Chairman said the government should take stakeholders on board while formulating the polices pertaining export and import adding that special export cell and import cell should be established in Commerce Ministry to facilitate the business community of the country.
Functioning of separate export and import cells would be handle the issues of exporters and importers easily and reduce the workload, he maintained. Hasnain said that government should take initiatives for introducing One Window operation to prevent tax evasion as well as to increase the ratio of tax collection to many folds.
The business community is suffering adversely to high cost bills because the production cost had been increased to many folds as a result of which we are unable to compete the global market easily and under the circumstance the government take necessary steps to ease of doing business. The PSGMEA Chairman revealed that according to a rough estimate there are more than ten thousand cottage industries, producing sports goods and related products in Sialkot.
He sought government support for modernization and industrialization and said that SMEs are unable to upgrade their workplaces and to obtain modern technologies for bringing innovation in products to cope with changing trends and demands of foreign buyers.