KARACHI, Dec 3: The government is soon to unveil a policy package for small and medium enterprises that will take care of management, marketing, financial and other matters, Federal Industries and Production Minister Jehangir Tareen announced on Saturday.

“The policy is almost complete and awaits formal approval from the cabinet,” the minister informed the participants of a two-day “Pakistan Industry Conference”. The theme of the session he attended was “Capacity building of SMEs to back up large-scale industries”.

He said the announcement of the policy was delayed because of the October 8 earthquake.

The State Bank of Pakistan has already set in place a set of prudential regulations for financing of SMEs. The banks, he said, are now independent entities and can take decisions within the framework of prudential regulations to finance SMEs.

The minister said the government was taking steps to ensure allocation of land and utility services to the SMEs. For this purpose, he said 240 acres of land “has been taken from the PIDC and will be given to develop a SMEs cluster”.

This industrial estate, he said, is being managed by a government-owned company with wholly private sector management. The management is appointing a consultant to decide on prices of land and other issues.

In the same industrial estate, he said, 10 acres have been provided for setting up an industrial technical institute. The government, he declared, is all set to raise the number of technical persons every year from 200,000 at present to one million.

He said industrial estates are being developed in Lahore and Faisalabad and other places to promote small- and medium-scale industries.

The minister disclosed that the ground-breaking ceremony for the establishment of a tool and equipment factory on 10 acres will be held in the next few weeks. The project will be completed in nine months, he added.

The existing industrial estates in Karachi and other parts of Sindh are also being revamped for which the government has provided a hefty sum of money.

Francis S Rozario, chairman of a local bank who chaired the session, spoke about his experience of dealing with SMEs as a banker in 20 countries. He said that Japan and South Korea are role models for the whole world where SMEs played a key role in industrial development.

Technical education, he said, is a prerequisite for promotion of SMEs as was done in Germany where institutes of technical education and institutions of higher technical learning were set up by the government.

Besides technical education, he added, prudent banking, venture capital and support of large-scale industry are also needed for the growth of SMEs.