Islamabad: Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif has directed authorities to expedite access to bank financing for the business community, particularly small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). He was chairing a high-level meeting in Islamabad today to review measures for expanding access to finance for businesses.
According to Radio Pakistan, the Prime Minister emphasized that greater availability of credit would boost investment, increase production, create employment opportunities, and enhance exports. He also described easier access to credit as the foundation of sustainable economic growth. An annual special award will be introduced for the bank providing the highest volume of financing to SMEs.
The meeting approved a three-tier governance structure to promote Access to Finance (A2F). Under this mechanism, the Prime Minister will head the high-level committee while the Finance Minister will chair the steering committee, with the Governor of the State Bank of Pakistan as co-chair. Separate sectoral sub-committees will also be established for SMEs, agriculture, information technology, renewable energy, and housing finance.
The meeting was informed that the government aims to increase SME financing from 1.15 trillion rupees in June this year to 2 trillion rupees by June 2028. The number of SME borrowers is also targeted to increase from 324,000 to 775,000 during the same period, while the share of SME financing in total bank lending is expected to increase from 9.9 percent to 13 percent. A scoring system will also be introduced to monitor banks' performance and encourage achievement of these targets.