September 13, 2002	Friday	Rajab 5, 1423

LAHORE, Sept 12: The Small and Medium Enterprise Development Authority (Smeda) on Thursday launched SME Networking Group to coordinate information and services of the various agencies working in the field. In a meeting held for this purpose, DG of Board of Investment, DG of Export Promotion Bureau, MD of Sindh Small Industrial Corporation, MD of Sarhad Small Industrial Development Board, director of Punjab Small Industrial Corporation, MD of Bank of Punjab, and representatives of SME Bank agreed to the need of such a body to avoid overlapping of work and wastage of time and money in the process.

The group plans to draw upon the extensive institutional expertise and collaborate for business promotion with special focus on SMEs through programme pooling competence from all the institutions working in the field. It will assist in overcoming common problems, achieve collective efficiency and expanding services by pooling resources together.

The group is also expected to provide an excellent precedent of core groups in a field joining hands to develop the sector by setting up an institutional mechanism for regular sharing of information and resources.

The group, comprising federal and provincial agencies, training and financial institutions in the field, has agreed to finalize a list of other institutions or agencies to be taken aboard, draft an MoU for formalizing the institutional structure and chalk out financial plan and standard format for exchange of information for developing SMEs.