October 18, 2006	Wednesday	Ramazan 24, 1427

KARACHI, Oct 17: The Sindh government has expressed reservations over the new small and medium enterprise (SME) policy, terming it highly centralised with little or no role for the provincial governments.

The draft policy has been approved by Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz and it will be placed before the cabinet for approval shortly.

A senior government official told Dawn on Tuesday that the draft had been circulated among the provinces for comments. The study of the draft reveals that the policy is silent on the role of the provincial governments, which have not been assigned any responsibility for implementation of the policy, although big SME clusters exist in Sindh and other provinces.

The official said that Sindh already had institutional setup for SMEs in the shape of Sindh Small Industries Corporation that managed about 19 industrial estates, almost one each in every district where land and infrastructure as well as financing in some cases was provided to the small and medium entrepreneurs to set up industries.

The official pointed out that the Sindh government, while supporting the SME policy, was trying to secure a more meaningful and well-pronounced role to avoid duplication and overlapping of efforts made by the federal government and the provinces for the development of the SME sector. “This will also help in achieving focused and visible results of the policy for the benefit of small and medium enterprises,” he added.He suggested that the Sindh government should be given a role, especially in loaning/financing to be provided to SMEs under the new policy. Elaborating his point the official said that under the policy funds should be made available to the Sindh Small Industries Corporation for disbursement among the SMEs.

The proposal, if incorporated in the new policy, would go a long way in supplementing efforts made by the provincial government for the alleviation of poverty, he added.

The official pointed out that the Sindh government had launched a few schemes in the past to provide financing to the SMEs which were later discontinued for want of funds. The Sindh government has already made a request to the federal government to provide Rs500 million, which would be extended to the SMEs for setting up new industrial units.

The SME policy is aimed at improving workers’ skill, providing SMEs an enhanced market access and raising their capability to make them competitive both in the domestic and export markets.

In reply to a query, the official said that the provinces were not consulted in formulation of the new SME policy. Their officials were, however, invited to the seminars organised to seek input from the private sector. Officially, no proposals were ever invited from the provinces in formulation of the policy.

He expressed the hope that the Sindh government’s point of view would be incorporated in the policy before it is finally approved.

It may be pointed out that the Sindh government has recently protested the federal government against the sale of two islands near Karachi to a Dubai-based real estate giant without taking the provincial authorities into confidence.