The Small and Medium Enterprises Development Authority (SMEDA) has projected exports of the country from US $ 18.21 billion to US $ 54.2 billion under its five-year SME development plan.
The Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) development plan for 2013-18 has been launched to lift growth trajectory of SMEs in globally competitive environment.
The other projected areas of the plan are employment from 14.85 million to 25 million, Gross Domestic Product (GDP) from US $ 73.95 billion to US $ 193.5 billion and number of enterprises from 1.73 million to two million.
According to information issued by ministry of industries and production here on Sunday, numerous measures were adopted to achieve the task including allocation of Rs 240.892 million in PSDP 2013-14.
During this year, the SMEDA managed some public sector development programme (PSDP) projects in different cities of the country with a total outlay of Rs 1,444.7 million. There are Sports Industries Development Centre, Sialkot, Foundry Service Centre, Lahore, Women Business Development Center, Karachi, Red Chilies Processing Centre, Kunri, Women Business Incubation Center, Quetta, Common Facility Training Center (CFTC) for Light Engineering Cluster, Mardan, Establishment of Common Facility Center (CFC) for Honey Processing and Packaging, Swat, Women Business Development Center, Mingora, Establishment of Common Facility Center (CFC) for Silk Cluster at Mingora, Establishment of Spinning Common Facility Center (CFC) at Islampur, Swat, Women Business Development Center, Peshawar, SME Subcontracting Exchange, Gujranwala, SMEDA SME Facilitation Complex at PITAC and Sialkot Business and Commerce Centre.
Moreover, with regard to SME’s access to finance, SMEDA has signed an MoU with State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) for their support while MoUs were also signed for SMEs facilitation including holding of seminars.
The ministry said parallel to infrastructure support, the SMEDA in collaboration with international agencies such as Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA), German International Cooperation (GIZ), and local experts, is providing technical assistance to SMEs across a range of industries to upgrade their skills and improve systems down to the shop level. The Investment Promotion Unit (IPU) in collaboration with UNIDO has been established at SMEDA for investment promotion in Pakistani SMEs and channelizing investment to high growth sectors.
