20 June 2004	Sunday	01 Jamadi-ul-Awwal 1425

KARACHI, June 19: The Union of Small and Medium Enterprises (Unisame) has suggested to the government to make address, bank account and National Tax Number (NTN) a must for small and medium enterprises (SME).

In a meeting held on Saturday, at the Union offices and presided over by Unisame president Zulfikar Thaver it was unanimously resolved that these three conditions should be met by SMEs.

Speaking on the occasion Mr Thaver said that obviously a large entrepreneur is not an SME and also a micro is not an SME. He said that a large enterprise can be distinguished from the fact that it comes under the Large Tax Payers Unit and the micro is one who has no tax registration because their income is below taxable slab.

The State Bank of Pakistan has defined an SME in the prudential regulation and it is the endeavour of the union to place before the members all the definitions given by all the different stakeholders and adopt the most suitable and the most appropriate one.

The SME has been defined by various agencies on the basis of capital, turnover, number of persons employed, and the Union has suggested to the government to determine the question on the basis of income tax paid by the entrepreneur because this will make it easy for the authorities to get an inventory of the SMEs straight away and work can begin on the other aspects.

The Unisame is taking up this issue with the Small and Medium Development Authority as this can resolve once for all the difficult task of defining an SME.