The Federation of Pakistan Chambers of Commerce & Industry’s Businessmen Panel (BMP), raising serious concern over the delay in approval of “Small and Medium Enterprises Policy 2021”, has stressed the need for speeding up the process of approving the new SME policy after removing its flaws with a view to address all sectors of economy.
FPCCI’s Businessmen Panel (BMP) Chairman Mian Anjum Nisar observed that the new policy is a very good start, yet few broad elements are also required to be added in the policy.
We appreciate the government’s initiative to facilitate SME sector, announcing rules for earning and gains for small and medium enterprises in fourteenth schedule in the budget. But, he pointed out that the draft of the SME policy does not discuss the provincial tax mattes, Education cess, labor laws, EOAB, Social Security and several other regulatory authorities’ issues. Raising serious concern over the flaws in the proposed SME Policy, he stated that the new policy has not addressed all sectors of the economy, as the issues of withholding tax, returns, audits, fines, penalties and surcharges, Income Tax and Sales Tax Statements have not been discussed in the policy
He said that the development of small and medium enterprises is imperative for sustainable economic growth and the government should ensure speedy work on the policy for cross-sector development of SMEs, particularly export-oriented businesses.
At first, the revamping of SMEDA should be one of the priorities by bringing in members from the private sector, which should be a lead organization for promotion of the SMEs.
He said that in spite of government tall claims of giving priority to small businesses the approval of new SME policy is being delayed, restraining the GDP growth, which is inevitable in achieving sustainable and robust economic progress.
Moreover, financing of SMEs from the formal sector is very low, as present, only 170,000 of 5.2 million SMEs are given loans by the formal sector, which should be increased to Rs3 million loans in the next couple of years.
