10 April 2004	Saturday	19 Safar 1425

LAHORE, April 9: Starting from the next financial year, the Small and Medium Enterprises Development Authority (Smeda) plans to set up 50 common facility centres (CFCs) for the small and medium sector in the next three years with a financial assistance of $12 million from the Asian Development Bank.

Smeda chief executive officer Shahab Khawaja told Dawn here on Friday that the federal government had already finalized a SME sector development facility of $180 million with the ADB. Out of that amount, some $12 million would be spent on the establishment of the CFCs all over the country.

The credit is expected to be released by the ADB in July. The CFCs, a joint production facility managed by respective trade associations, would help SMEs access latest technology.

Mr Khawaja said the CFCs would be "need based" so that the investment made in them was not wasted as had already happened in a few cases in the past. The need assessment will be made by Smeda in consultation with the stakeholders (representative trade body)," he said in answer to a question. The idea of setting up CFCs has been necessitated by the inability of the SMEs to improve their technology.