‘Banks should focus on SME lending’

Commercial banks should start paying back to the country by starting lending to SMEs, says Business Support Fund CEO.

KARACHI: Commercial banks should start paying back to the country by starting lending to small and medium enterprises (SMEs) out of what they earned in the last 10 years.

This was said by Saquib Mohyuddin, the CEO of Business Support Fund of the ministry of finance.

Speaking to the participants of the 4th SME Conference on Saturday, he said that banks are now in a better position to understand and lend to SMEs to mitigate the endless problems of the sector.

Mohyuddin urged the State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) to amend the SME policy of 2007 by eliminating structural faults. “Unless we eliminate structural faults from the SME policy, we cannot implement it in letter and spirit,” he added.

Zubair Motiwala, adviser to Sindh chief minister and vice president of Sindh’s Board of Investment, said not all is bad in Pakistan as far as investment is concerned.

“I agree that the security situation is not what is required but what is portrayed in media about the image of Pakistan is worse, to say the least,” he said.

He said that the marble city at Bhambore (Sindh) will start functioning in the next quarter. Besides, a mango processing and pulp producing plant and a dates processing and packaging plant have been planned to export finished products in large quantities.

Shezad Arif, SME banking head at Standard Chartered Bank, said that the bank has faced various problems in lending loans to the SMEs. “Despite having losses, our bank is still committed to continuing operations for we know that the SME sector is the future of Pakistan,” he added.

Waqar Ahmed, head of the SME division at Soneri Bank, said the issues and dynamics of SMEs are so different that all commercial banks should start a separate division for SMEs so that they can better serve the sector.

Published in The Express Tribune, October 3^rd, 2010.