HYDERABAD, Jan 17: The Small and Medium Enterprises Bank (SME) is different from other banks as it has been established to encourage the small and medium enterprises.

This was said by the president of the SME, Dr Qaiser H. Naseem, while talking to the traders and industrialists at the conference hall of the Hyderabad Chamber of Commerce and Industry, here on Thursday.

He said that the bank would provide financial support to the entrepreneurs at their door steps. Previously, the banking facilities had been made available to the small entrepreneurs but instead of providing banking facilities to the small businessmen, 85 per cent of the big industrialists were provided loans.

The SME had been specially created by the government to provide funding to the small entrepreneurs, he said.

The president of the chamber of commerce, Yousuf Suleman, said that a few months back, SME had announced a recovery package under which 25 per cent of the entrepreneurs had made the re-payment.

He said the bank had fixed February as the final month for making the re-payments but the business activities had been adversely affected due to the Sept 11 incident.—Bureau