Small and Medium Enterprises Development Authority (SMEDA) Chief Executive Officer Fuad Hashim Rabbani has proposed to interlink the "Pakistan Go Global" (PGG) Project with SMEDA's SME Development initiatives.
At a meeting with the World Bank officials on the PGG Project's design and modalities, he said that SMEDA had been mandated by the government to promote entrepreneurship in the SME sector. The World Bank's current project PGG will help the organization further strengthen its initiatives to make Pakistani SMEs more competitive and export ready, he said, and agreed to extend support services of SMEDA to equip the local SMEs with internationally recognized managerial practices for becoming accredited suppliers to the international buyers.
World Bank team leader Adja Mansora expressed confidence on SMEDA's capabilities on SME development programme and hoped that the activities to be undertaken in collaboration with World Bank would help execute the PGG project amicably. She discussed various proposals with regard to the joint activities in this regard and said that the programme would be conducted in its first phase as a sector agnostic pilot intervention targeting a select number of exporting firms.
She said the Pakistani government was engaged with the World Bank to implement "Pakistan Goes Global" project that aims to enhance Pakistan's export and SMEDA has been proposed to undertake the component that entails 'Capacity Building of SMEs' to make them export capable.
It is notable that the PGG initiative is being designed on national level where a significant number of SMEs will benefit from the programme, which would also involve cluster and sector development initiatives.