ISLAMABAD: The Board of Investment (BoI) has set up facilitation centres in Islamabad and provincial capitals to facilitate and make the small and medium enterprises (SMEs) more productive to generate more employment opportunities in the country.

The facilitation centres will help SMEs to set up their businesses on a fast track basis and supporting them in starting a business dealing with construction permits, paying taxes, trading across borders and enforcing contracts, BoI Chairman Dr Miftah Ismail said here on Monday.

Speaking to newsmen, Dr Miftah said within days of creation, the facilitation centres have started receiving complaints and requests for rederessal of their complaints.

The main issues on which SMEs approaching the facilitation centres deal with lack of proper infrastructure un­­skilled manpower, shortage of finances, access to the utilities, district police issues, taxation, competition, acquisition of land and obtaining national tax number.

The facilitation centres have been empowered to take action with concerned departments for the resolution of complaints raised by SMEs, he said.

The country’s small and medium enterprises are considered as informal units and these are contributing much of the output by private sector, employing the largest portion of employment. However, it remains financially constrained, with little access to infrastructure, lack of knowledge regarding modern technology, disadvantaged when dealing with labour, and with virtually no ability to influence the policymakers, he said.

Published in Dawn, July 29th, 2014