LAHORE : – The Small and Medium Enterprises Development Authority (SMEDA) and the Pakistan Microfinance Network (PMN) have pledged to collaborate for enhancing financial facilities for micro-enterprises in the country. Socrat Aman Rana, Chief Executive Officer of SMEDA and Syed Mohsin Ahmed, Chief Executive Officer of PMN held a meeting at SMEDA head office in association with their experts’ teams to identify the major areas of mutual cooperation. The meeting discussed possibilities of collaboration to build a strong understanding of the micro-enterprises landscape focusing on their needs of financial literacy, and access to finance through data sharing between the two organizations.
Welcoming the guests, CEO SMEDA Socrat Aman Rana said, “We greatly value PMN’s role in advancing financial inclusion in Pakistan and we see substantial alignment in our shared mission for supporting the underserved micro-enterprises. We look forward to exploring how a symbiotic relationship built upon each other’s strength can be established to create a meaningful impact on the sector.” He said MSMEs play a key role in Pakistan’s economy by contributing 40 percent to GDP, creating 78pc of non-agriculture employment and generating 25pc of exports. “There are around 7 million small and medium economic establishments in the country and 95pc of businesses employ fewer than 10 people. In addition, 28pc of households are engaged in some sort of home-based economic activity,” he said and informed that Pakistan, had over 11 million active loan borrowers with an average loan size of Rs55, 000, which shows vast scale of micro-enterprise activity in the country. He underscored the need to uplift the microfinance sector, especially for small farmers, agriculture and livestock.
CEO PMN Syed Mohsin Ahmed said, it’s very important to make collaborative efforts for improving microfinancing in the country, because, the micro-enterprises can be grown as small enterprises with a collaborative support in providing finance and business development services. “We look forward to joining hands with SMEDA and hope that together we will make a meaningful impact to the micro-enterprise sector by improving access to finance and other services,” he added.
Sohail Majeed is a Special Correspondent at The Diplomatic Insight. He has twelve plus years of experience in journalism & reporting. He covers International Affairs, Diplomacy, UN, Sports, Climate Change, Economy, Technology, and Health.
