Adviser to the Prime Minister on Finance and Revenue Mr. Shaukat Tarin chaired a meeting on revitalizing SMEDA at Finance Division, on Thursday.
Federal Minister for Industries and Production Makhdoom Khusro Bakhtiar, CEO SMEDA and senior officers attended the meeting.
CEO SMEDA gave a presentation on the organization’s functions and performance and briefed the Adviser on the challenges and way forward for further enhancing SMEDA’s performance.
In his remarks, Federal Minister for Industries and Production Makhdoom Khusro Bakhtiar underlined the recently announced SME Policy is a key Government initiative for sustainable and inclusive economic growth and SMEDA, being the only federal government organization for SME development, needs to be further strengthened for growth of this sector.
The Adviser for Finance and Revenue Mr. Shaukat Tarin while highlighting the vision of the Prime Minister to revitalize the SMEs for the economic and social development of Pakistan, said that the revitalization and strengthening of SMEDA and SME Bank is essential to achieve the targets of SME policy as SMEs are backbone of our economy, he added.
The Adviser Mr. Shaukat Tarin further stressed that SMEDA needs to be financial and administratively autonomous with greater private sector role and must consider investments in offering credit guarantees, venture capital, setting up SME subcontracting houses and SME Special Economic Zones through the PRs 30.0 billion SME Fund committed for the Authority.
The Minister of Industries Mr. Khusro Bakhtiar proposed larger no. of Private sector in SMEDA and that the Ministry of Industries & production will move swiftly to propose necessary amendments in the SMEDA Ordinance 2002.
