KARACHI, Dec 9: Nawid Ahsan, secretary-general, Ministry of Finance, said on Saturday that the government is dedicatedly working on five to six basic areas relating to development of the Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs), and to make SMEs’ easy access to financing, a prudential regulation is under preparation for micro- banking.

Speaking at a seminar on “Capacity-Building and Development of SMEs,” organized by the Small and Medium Enterprises Alliance (SAMEA), he said undoubtedly the credit to SMEs had shown an upward trend as they were getting necessary support from the market. He said in the past there was only one bank to extend credit to agriculture sector, but now all scheduled banks have been allowed to provide these loans.

He, however, agreed that a lot has to be done in basic areas directly linked with development of SMEs, and said the government was constantly working on them to enhance their capacity by making access to finance easy, develop human resources, upgradation of technologies, providing information, improving linkages (backward and forward), improving environment by streamlining labour laws and other legal requirements.

Apart from six to seven micro-finance banks, Nawid Ahsan said presently all scheduled banks have a window for SMEs who are getting good response from market, as well.

He welcomed the establishment of more foreign banks, and said it indicated that there was a lot of potential here and it would also help introduce better techniques, procedures and know-how in the banking sector in Pakistan. However, he stressed the need for changing or reviewing policies with the inter-action of stakeholders so that proper regulations and procedures are adopted.

For easy access to information, he said services of a ‘Development Gateway Foundation’ for which Pakistan is a founder-member, could be used. This world body, he said, had modern techniques to disseminate information and had also done a good job in Africa.

Similarly, for case linkages, he said, the SAMEA had already been working. The government, he further said, was open to suggestions and recommendations to bring about changes or improvements in any area concerning the SMEs. In case of environment, labour and legal matters, the government was actively working and would always incorporate suggestions, he added.

He further stated that the government has been doing direct intervention on “one-village one-product scheme” and had also launched Rozgar Scheme of NBP.

Nawid Ahsan further stated that a conference on micro-finance will be held in Islamabad shortly in which all stakeholders would be invited.

However, he said that there should be around 30 million micro-finance borrowers and the present number of around 700,000 was insufficient.

A business support fund is also being raised with the assistance of Asian Development Bank, he added. There are also funds in the world which could help SMEs in different sectors and areas and the government was working to get their services.

Other speakers included Liaquat Durrani, Managing Director, State Bank of Pakistan, Afzal Munif, Vice Chairman, Rozgar Micro-Financing Bank, S M Muneer, chairman, Din Group of Companies, and Syed Iqbal A Kidwai, general manager (operations) SMEDA.