Islamabad Chamber of Commerce & Industry (ICCI) has urged the government to fully patronize Small & Medium Enterprises (SMEs) to accelerate economic growth in the country.

Mr.Karim Aziz Malik, Acting President, ICCI said that SMEs has the potential to turn around the sagging economy, create lot of jobs, reduce poverty and provide substantial revenue to the government. However, he said that this potential has not been fully exploited so far due to lack of effective policies to support them.

He said Japan, China, Singapore, Malaysia and many other countries have achieved phenomenal economic growth by focusing on SMEs and Pakistan can also bring an industrial revolution by promoting well organized small scale industries which will lay the foundations for industrialization of the country.

He said to encourage SMEs, government should address on priority all those constraints that are hampering optimum growth of this sector. He said the biggest hurdle being faced by SMEs is the lack of financing.

He said according to the latest SBP report, SMEs financing by banks fell 6.6 per cent to Rs.326 billion in March 2010 from Rs.349 billion in March 2009 and stressed that government should look for setting up a Venture Capital Fund to provide easy financing to SMEs.

Mr.Karim Aziz Malik said that inadequate infrastructure, unfriendly business environment, shortage of skilled manpower, lack of government support in upgrading technology and marketing goods & services are the other factors that are impeding the growth of these enterprises and emphasized that government should take urgent measures to deal with these problems.

He said government should also establish more SMEs zones in the country and at least one dedicated SMEs zone should be established for women entrepreneurs so that more women could set up SMEs and contribute effectively to strengthening the economy.