January 31, 2009 — "Small businesses are major creators of jobs, and a job is the best safety net for the poor," said EVP and CEO Lars Thunell at the launch of a partnership with Standard Chartered Bank to build managerial capacity of smaller businesses in Pakistan.
Thunell and representatives of Standard Chartered signed a memorandum of understanding on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum at Davos.
"Many small business owners need help to manage and market their businesses," Thunell said. "This program with Standard Chartered will help Pakistani entrepreneurs expand their companies and run them more successfully."
The program is part of a comprehensive project launched by IFC Advisory Services in MENA to develop the managerial capacity of small and medium enterprises in Pakistan, deploying both Business Edge and SME Toolkit. With Business Edge, IFC is specifically targeting SMEs in the value chains of large corporations, primarily in the financial sector.
Standard Chartered, as one of the key partners in the project, is working with IFC to deliver a number of Business Edge management training workshops to SMEs in Pakistan in 2009.
This cooperation is targeting 100 SMEs in different sectors in four remote cities. The target sector in each city is trading in Lahore, forging in Gujranwala, rice processing in Sialkot, and textiles in Faisalabad.
"The SME sector is the engine of economic growth worldwide," said Peter Sands, Group Chief Executive of Standard Chartered. "And yet the sector's full growth potential is far from realized. Many small SMEs are chronically underserved."
"This program that we are piloting in Pakistan will provide small and underserved SMEs with innovative banking products, help develop their skills in critical areas such as business planning and product marketing, and provide them with business mentors," Sands added. "We are delighted that IFC, who we see as leaders in business development support for SMEs, is our primary partner in delivering this Millennium Development Goal Business Call to Action commitment."
For more information contact:
Riham Mustafa
Cairo, Egypt
E-mail: rmustafa@ifc.org
