PM urges banks to boost financing for housing, SMEs, agriculture sectors

He said collaboration with the private sector should enhance the capacity of these warehous­es and silos to ensure the safe storage of farmers’ produce.The prime minister directed the authorities to simplify the process of providing informa­tion and documentation for peo­ple seeking to benefit from the Apna Ghar housing scheme.He instructed that obtaining an unencumbered title deed for housing finance should be made easier.

He also directed the com­mittee on developers’ finance to finalise its recommendations and submit them at the earliest.

During the meeting, participants were briefed on the progress and lending figures for the housing, agriculture and SME sectors.The meeting was informed that banks were enhancing their in­stitutional capacity to extend fi­nancing to all three priority sec­tors.

Work was also underway to promote developers’ finance, for which a committee had been constituted.Under the Prime Minister’s Apna Ghar Scheme, loans worth Rs448 billion had been approved for 75,198 applicants so far, the meeting was told.

Loans amount­ing to Rs76 billion have been dis­bursed to 14,000 people while a target of providing Rs700 bil­lion in loans for 125,000 housing units has been set for the current year.

The meeting was further in­formed that the processing time for housing finance applications had been reduced to just 15 working days, while the number of required documents had been cut from 25 to five.In the agriculture sector, the total volume of loans stands at Rs1,352 billion, benefiting 3.455 million people while targets have been set to increase agricultural lending to Rs1,500 billion and the number of beneficiaries to 4.5 million….

By June 2027, the government aims to increase SME lending to Rs1,500 billion and expand the number of borrowing business­es to 575,000, the meeting was informed.

The meeting was also briefed on steps being taken to introduce revised regulations for SMEs and further simpli­fy and improve housing finance procedures.Other measures discussed in­cluded joint risk-sharing ar­rangements, promotion of supply-chain financing, authen­ticated data sharing and other ongoing initiatives to improve access to credit.Federal Ministers Rana Tan­veer Hussain, Dr Musadik Masood Malik, Attaullah Tarar, Riaz Hussain Pirzada, Ahad Khan Cheema and Shaza Fati­ma Khawaja; Prime Minister’s Adviser Haroon Akhtar;….

He was presiding over a meeting in Islamabad to discuss measures for the devel­opment of Pakistan’s precious stones and gems sector and in­creasing its exports.The Prime Minister expressed displeasure over delays in the preparation of the pilot proj­ect for the precious stones and gems sector and the lack of progress on initiatives to devel­op the sector.He directed the relevant au­thorities to formulate and pres­ent a time-bound action plan on a….

Shehbaz Shar­if said initiatives to develop the precious stones and gems sec­tor are a priority and no delays or sluggishness will be tolerated.He said Allah Almighty has blessed Pakistan with abun­dant natural resources, but Pa­kistan suffers annual losses worth billions of dollars due to substandard mining practices and the smuggling of precious stones.He directed that the “Brand Pakistan” initiative for precious stones and gems be developed on the lines of….

He said priority mea­sures should be taken to boost exports by leveraging Pakistan’s vast reserves of precious stones and minerals.The meeting was informed that 4.8 kanals of land had been transferred for the Centre of Ex­cellence project in Hussainabad, Skardu.

The required funds are available and construction is likely to commence soon.The meeting was further in­formed that land had been iden­tified for the project in Azad Jam­mu and Kashmir and Islamabad.

Until the Centre of Excellence in Islamabad is constructed, it will be made fully operational at an alternative location.