Govt working to support SMEs

Dawood says steps being taken to facilitate ease of doing business

ISLAMABAD:

The government is taking measures to support the small and medium enterprises (SME) sector and facilitate ease of doing business in Pakistan, said Adviser to Prime Minister on Commerce and Investment Abdul Razak Dawood.

He made the remarks in a meeting with a delegation of the Peshawar Chamber of Small Traders and Small Industry on Friday.

Office-bearers and representatives of the chamber gave briefings to the adviser on their activities and plans to support and develop the SME sector.

The main issues highlighted by the chamber were related to getting representation in policymaking circles for the SME sector and across-the-board implementation and enforcement of the tax regime within provincial areas as well as merged areas of erstwhile Fata.

They added that loopholes in tax laws and failure to implement the sales tax regime caused disparities between the tax filers and non-filers, which needed to be removed.

Appreciating the antismuggling efforts of the government, the delegation called for enforcing intellectual property rights (IPR) across Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa and the rest of the country. Problems related to packaging, labelling and regulatory requirements were also discussed.

The chamber requested support from the government for the provision of free land so that the chamber could set up its offices as well as incubation and training centres for SME development in Peshawar, which would cater to K-P demand.

The adviser welcomed proposals for documentation of the economy and spoke about the initiatives being undertaken by the government in that regard.