industrial policy, its spatial aspects and cluster development in ...

• Establishment of testing and certification facilities should be financed.
• A vendor development programme should be initiated under which ‘buyer –
seller meets’ exhibitions are organised at regular intervals and at dispersed
locations.
• A fresh census of small scale industries should be conducted with special focus on
gathering information on the incidence of sickness of industries and its causes.
• Skill development initiatives specific to SMEs should be initiated. Schemes
covering the areas highlighted below should be developed:
• Training should be provided in quality management systems
• Training support for entrepreneurial and managerial development of SMEs
• Training and benchmarking for designing lean manufacturing techniques
• SMEDA should be institutionally restructured to enable it to design sectoral
programs for the SMEs that involve tailor-made investment projects in various
sectors. The new organization structure should also enable SMEDA to interact
with the government (federal and provincial) and its entities for developing
favourable policy environment for SMEs. SMEDA’s new organization structure
should also allow it to network domestically and globally to bring the maximum
benefits for the SMEs of Pakistan.
• Adequate human resource with greater financial flexibility should be made
available to run the revised organisations structure.
• The joint equity participation fund should be revitalised and should be allowed to
provide loans up to 25% of the project value with a maximum cap of Rs. 10
million. The mark up charged on these loans should be 5%.
Assisting Sick Industrial Units
In any business not all firms survive due to a variety of reasons however in relatively
efficient markets the productive capacity of failed firms is acquired by others. In
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