MINISTER ENERGY SYED NASIR HUSSAIN SHAH’S ADDRESS AT CLOSING CEREMONY OF THE 8TH ANNUAL MICROSOFT CONFERENCE

Karachi October 4: Provincial Minister of Energy, Development and Planning Syed Nasir Hussain Shah, addressing the closing ceremony of the 8th annual Microsoft conference as a special guest at a local hotel on Thursday, said that I feel privileged to be here in front of this august forum and speak on behalf of government of Sindh and spell out the vision of my party and provincial government for creating an enabling environment where the young energetic middle and lower middle-class citizen are given skill based training linked with a sustainable increase in their livelihood through small medium enterprises development. Chairman SECP Akif Saeed, Deputy Governor State Bank Dr. Inayat Ali, Chairman PMU Aamir Khan, Chairman PMU Policy Committee Dr. Rashid Bajwa, CEO Pakistan Microfinance Network Mohsin Ahmed, international financial dignitaries, Academicians and experts from the banking sector participated.

This forum has already discussed SEDF (Sindh Enterprise Development Fund) project which was initiated by GOS in 2012 under Investment Department. After successful ten years, SEDF have supported interest- based financing of big business initiatives such as Day Fresh Milk facility at Bhambhore, multiple Control shed poultry farms, cold storages, and other agro-based value addition private project in the province of Sindh. Not only this but Government of Sindh through PPRP (Peoples Poverty Reduction Project) and SRSO have reached out to more than 300,000 families, where interest free loans are given for small business initiatives by lower middle class rural families every year in more than 16 districts of Sindh. Recently government has enhanced the loan limit from few lacs to Rs.‪2.0 – 3.0‬ million to support medium size enterprising project.

Recovery rate from these interest free loans is more than 90% in last 8 to 10 years. Sindh Government through other donor funded project such as PAIDAR (EU Funding of USD 40.0 M), IFAD (Funding of USD 163.0 M) and LivAqua (WB Funded Project of USD 135.0 M) for Fisherfolk agro based microfinance project. All these projects are primarily focusing on localized skill training leading towards interest free loans for small community-based business development. Sindh Social Protection Authority established under Govt of Sindh is working day and night to provide sustainable financing to all the marginalized communities who are living under poverty score in the province of Sindh.

Government of Sindh is also using banking sector to rebuild more than1.5 million houses which were completely washed out in floods of 2022 with an investment of more than USD 1.5 Bn. This entire disbursement is being done through self-help construction mechanism where milestone-based funds are released to beneficiaries through banks. This relationship of banking institutes with government institutions have helped increase the confidence of general public in the government at the grass root level. Sindh is the only province in the country who have successfully launched and completed PPP infrastructure projects, where banks knowing the strong legal backing and financial commitment of provincial government under VGF regime have supported huge private investors in providing financial close. Many of these completed projects have now started giving back revenue to the government.

Government of Sindh is cognizant of the fact that sustainable economic development can only be achieved where private and government sectors proceed hand in glove to achieve common objective. For that I on behalf of Govt of Sindh assure full commitment and support to all the initiatives which will be brought forward by the private sector. Using the opportunity, I will also stress that banks should explore more options to support localized agro based industries on easy terms so that economic growth of rural centers can also be increased on similar pace. I once again thank you for extending me this opportunity to be in front of such an intellectual forum and discuss government’s vision in support of Small and Medium size business enterprises in the province of Sindh.