August 16, 2006	Wednesday	Rajab 20, 1427

KARACHI, Aug 15: The commerce ministry is planning to set up an SME Export House with the objective to promote export trade of small and medium enterprises. Under the trade policy 2006-07, the government had proposed to establish the export house as a joint venture of public and private sectors which would be managed and run by professionals. The ministry was seeking suggestions from the trade bodies to be incorporated in the final draft of the SME Export House bye-laws.

The ministry was also seeking suggestions from the Union of Small and Medium Enterprises (Unisame) and informed its President Zulfikar Thaver that presently models of two countries including Turkey were under study.

The union was of the view that the export house should be linked with the International Trade Centre (ITC) and its focus should be collective marketing of engineering goods, foodstuffs, textiles, handicrafts and other goods manufactured by SMEs.

It said that due to climatic change, the United Kingdom would be importing all kinds of fans for next summer and the SMEs in fan industry could exploit the market through the proposed export house.

The union also proposed that a benchmark should be fixed under Pakistan Standard Quality Control Authority (PSQCA) for SME goods.