Islamabad: The Ministry of Industries and Production is preparing the National Small and Medium Enterprise (SME) Policy 2019, a news source reported. It will primarily focus on reducing the cost of doing business in the country, and working towards a rationalization of the taxation regime.
For these measures, the ministry will take assistance from the Lahore University of Management Sciences (LUMS). The initial draft of the policy will be shared with the stakeholders in order to invite their input.
The ministry has also received a number of proposals from the various sectors concerned. Additionally, LUMS professor Abdul Rab has also provided recommendations after a conducting a survey on the issue.
The National SME Policy 2019 will support the incumbent government’s commitment for boosting the SME sector. It will play the role of a master plan for accelerating the sector’s growth. The policy will focus on the creation of jobs, enhancing exports, and increasing the contribution of SMEs towards the national economy.
The policy aims to address the main development issues of the SME sector. These include access to finance, business development services, rationalisation of tax regime, and reduction of costs for doing business.
A cohesive strategy framework for business facilitation across the public sector institutional infrastructure – both at the federal and provincial levels – will be established for implementing this policy. This measure will be taken under the standard ‘ease of doing business’ principle.
To develop this policy, the ministry has adopted a participatory process for identifying the range of SME challenges, and working out strategies to overcome them. In this regard, nationwide focus group discussions, consultative sessions, and workshops were conducted during the last seven months of the current fiscal year.
Once the draft policy is ready, the ministry will submit it to the federal cabinet for approval.
