Unisame pleads PM to place Smeda under cabinet division

KARACHI - The Union of Small and Medium Enterprises (Unisame) in a communication to Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani has urged him to revamp the Small and Medium Enterprises Development Authority (Smeda) and place it under the cabinet division directly answerable to the PM as in many countries of the world.
President Unisame Zulfikar Thaver in his message to the PM suggested that Smeda should be headed by a businessman from the private sector knowing the needs of the SME sector and application of promotional tools for the uplift of the sector as a bureaucrat cannot comprehend the commercial angle of small business secondly he said that in most of the countries of the world the SME promotion and development bodies are under the president or the PM of the country.
He added even in USA the Small Business Corporation is directly under the president of America.
He said precious time has been lost and although it has been a decade that Smeda came into existence nothing has been done to make Smeda useful to the SMEs infact the SMEs are not aware of Smeda nor has Smeda advocated the cause of the SMEs which was its principal agenda and main object clause of its memorandum and articles of association.
He said our suggestions to Small and Medium Enterprises Development Authority have fallen on deaf ears and it is discouraging to note that at a time like this when SMEs can contribute much in the rural and urban areas Smeda lacks the initiatives to gear the sector.
He said our major complaint against the authority is that during the last 10 years it failed to promote import substitution, indigenous, agro-based and engineering industries despite our repeated request.
He lamented that we proposed to Small and Medium Enterprises Development Authority to develop state of the art industrial estates in the outskirts of major cities and also submitted the modalities but it did not take up the matter with the provincial governments.
Unisame experts have suggested to the government to employ highly skilled professionals to run the affairs of the authority under a private sector chief who can exploit the resources and give jump start to the sector by modernizing the existing industries by reverse engineering and also transfer of technology.
They reiterated that there is ample scope in synthetics and business leadership is required to set the ball in motion and for this reason private sector personnel could achieve and give satisfactory results.