KARACHI, April 11: The Union of Small and Medium Enterprises (Unisame) has hailed the final draft of the SME Act 2005 which has broadened the definition of an enterprise to an entity engaged in economic activity irrespective of its legal form. A meeting of the union’s managing committee members under the chairmanship of its president Zulfikar Thaver here on Monday discussed the draft and were of the opinion that if implemented it would be one of the most open and modern SME promotion laws.

The draft has also included self-employed persons and family business in its definition by treating small enterprise as an independent enterprise, independent of organizational form, ownership, and trade which employs between 6 to 50 persons.

Speaking on the occasion Mr Thaver said that for the development of the SME sector the government should carefully work out setting up of such facilitating organizations like SME Ombudsman, SME Bank Reform, Specific Funds for SMEs, SME Foreign Trade Companies, Encouragement of National Fairs and Exhibitions, Technology Innovation Centres and SME Development Institute.

The Unisame appreciated the efforts made by Small and Medium Enterprise Development Authority (Smeda) and Asian Development Bank’s consultant Christoph David Weinmann for drafting such a pragmatic SME laws.