April 08, 2008	Tuesday	Rabi-us-Sani 1, 1429

KARACHI, April 7: The State Bank of Pakistan, in collaboration with the International Securities Consultancy Limited (ISC), Hong Kong, is organising an awareness and consensus-building workshop on Strengthening Secured Transaction Regime in Pakistan at a hotel here on Wednesday, April 9.

A release issued by the SBP on Monday said the objective of the workshop is to familiarise the participants with international best practices with regard to secured transactions and to present initial high-level legal and technical proposals for such a system in Pakistan through presentations to be delivered by International Consultants on Draft Legal Reform Framework (LRF) Report and Business & Systems Design (BSD) Report which have just been completed by the consultants. In the end, stakeholders’ feedback on Secured Transaction Framework Report will be collected as part of awareness and consensus-building efforts.

The workshop will be attended by senior officials of the SBP and banks, federal and provincial governments’ senior level representatives as well as officials from SME associations, and representatives from accounting, legal and information technology firms.

The workshop is being organised as part of Asian Development Bank-sponsored technical assistance; which aims to improve access to credit for the SMEs and agricultural sectors in Pakistan by creating a register for loans secured on assets, particularly the moveable assets.

The Strengthening Secured Transaction Framework Project is being funded by the ADB under its Technical Assistance Programme for Pakistan. The ministry of finance is the executing agency, while SBP is the implementing agency for this project along with the consultancy firm namely, ISC, Hong Kong.