Engineering Post Report
Small and Medium Enterprises Development Authority (SMEDA) collaborates with a number of international development partners in furtherance of its objectives of promotion and development of small and medium enterprises in the country to which the incumbent federal government attaches great importance.
These international development organizations include Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA), German International Cooperation (GTZ), Training and Development Centres of the Bavaran Employees Association (bfz) Germany and local experts for extending support to the local industries.
Technical assistance is provided to SMEs in order to enhance competitiveness by improving productivity, quality and energy efficiency.
Details of facilitation and support provided to SMEs during last financial year as given below:
Under the SMEDA-JICA Auto Parts Project, technical support was extended to 28 auto part manufacturers in Lahore and Karachi.
Baseline Energy audits were conducted in 06 SMEs from auto parts sector and Sports goods sectors. Follow up visits of 9 companies were also conducted for Improving Production Efficiencies.
Operational Health and Safety Assessment of 2 production units was conducted along with layouts comprising of safety equipment installations.
Technical assistance in implementation of Japanese productivity and quality tools was provided to 15 SME units.
16 training programmes and workshops were organized in the areas of energy efficiency, productivity, quality, total productive maintenance etc during the period under report.
SMEDA has also set up Economic Cooperation and Development Forum (ECDF) platform as a United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) project for discussing challenges and opportunities in the Newly-Me4rged Districts under FATA Economic Revitalization Programme.
The forum comprises 50 experts from public sector, think tanks, donors, civil society organizations, academia, banks, chambers of commerce and industries and private sector.
The Forum has developed and submitted proposals for development of mineral sector to the Khyber Pukhtoonkhwa Provincial Government for accelerating economic development of Newly-Merged Districts (NMDs). Other initiatives included extension of KPK Mineral Governance Act 2017, Introduction of mineral specific magistracy system, digitalization of mine leases allotment process and declaring the ownership of KPK government on mineral resources in the NMDs.
