Economic and financial analyst, Ateeq-ur-Rehman, has said that the SMEs and small businesses are the backbone of the economy, and they should be given grants as bailout packages to survive.

He said that at this increasingly challenging time, SMEs or small businesses cannot afford loans. They should be given grants as bailout packages to survive. He said SMEs were direct victims of the IMF due to the latter's dictation to raise utility tariffs, interest rates, unstable exchange rates and curb on imports.

The additional cost added massively increased the cost of doing business which was quite damaging to the whole economy and especially to the SMEs.

He said that the SMEs and small businessmen were on the verge of devastation and a further debt burden with such high interest rates would not be feasible as they have no cash to survive.

Their basic issue was a working capital, which had been massively affected due to the lockdown. Moreover, the commercial banks were demanding hefty collateral which was impossible for small businesses to arrange. Therefore complying with such bailout packages/loans was not sensible, he added.