December 14, 2021:The SME Policy 2021will be launched this month by prime minister Imran Khan, said a press release issued on Monday.
The Union of Small and Medium Enterprises (UNISAME) has felicitated The Small and Medium Enterprises Development Authority (SMEDA) and the Ministry of Industries and Production (MoI&P) for finally completing the SME Policy 2021 to replace 2007 one successfully after many years.
UNISAME president Zulfikar Thaver said, “In our meetings with SMEDA and MoI&P's officials we have learned that the policy is comprehensive and envisages the different aspects of the majority sector and aims at facilitating, encouraging, supporting, and helping the entrepreneurs.”
It is also aimed at making doing business easily but unfortunately has not been able to reduce the cost of doing business as inflation has killed all plans.
He said the irony of the SME Policy is that it will be launched without SMEDA having a board of directors (BoD) which the MoI&P has not yet appointed since the last BoD completed their term in 2017. He expressed dissatisfaction and wondered why the MoI&P makes such grave and serious mistakes.
“In our meeting with Khusro Bakhtiar federal minister of industries and production we urged him to ensure that the requirements of the sector are well covered in the policy where heassured the stakeholders of an exemplary policy and has indeed included all segments in his several meetings with trade leaders and SME experts,” he added.
He also stated, “I informed him on behalf of the sector that the SMEs need finance at affordable rates, uninterrupted energy also at affordable rates, filling of the technological gap, marketing support, efficient and modern banking, leasing, insurance, and logistics and last but not the least a very strong SMEDA.”
