Key Takeaways
- Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif ordered the launch of a digital portal for SMEs by November end.
- The portal aims to facilitate access to bank financing and enable real-time monitoring of credit.
- The government targets increased lending to SMEs to Rs1,500 billion by June 2027.
Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif has directed the launch of a digital portal for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) by the end of November, aiming to improve access to bank financing and real-time monitoring of credit and other business facilities.
The proposed SME portal will provide updated information on bank lending to businesses, including the status of letters of credit (LCs) and other business facilities, according to an official briefing.
The meeting also discussed the progress of the Prime Minister’s Apna Ghar Scheme, which has approved 71,690 housing loans worth Rs426 billion, with Rs76 billion disbursed to 13,214 borrowers.
The government set a target of Rs700 billion in housing finance for 125,000 residential units for the current year, with the Prime Minister praising the National Bank of Pakistan (NBP) for achieving a 76 percent approval rate in housing finance.
The Prime Minister directed the NBP’s newly appointed president to improve the bank’s overall performance by hiring the best professionals and taking action against employees who failed to deliver the required results.
The meeting was informed that agricultural lending currently stands at Rs1,352 billion, benefiting 3.455 million people, with a target of raising agricultural credit to Rs1,500 billion by June 2027.
The SME sector has so far received Rs1,137 billion in loans for 350,000 businesses, with the government aiming to increase SME lending to Rs1,500 billion and the number of borrowing businesses to 565,000 by June 2027.
The government is promoting modern technology and digital systems to improve SMEs’ access to finance, encourage investment, and enable them to compete in international markets.
Other initiatives include joint risk-sharing in lending, promotion of supply-chain financing, and the sharing of verified data to simplify housing-finance procedures.
