4-day 'Festival Of North' For SMEs To Open On 20th

Small and Medium Enterprises Development Authority (SMEDA) in collaboration with Pakistan Tourism Development Corporation (PTDC) is going to hold a four-day "Festival of North" (Gojal Chapter) on October 20-23, 2022 in Gilgit Baltistan to promote SMEs in the province

LAHORE, (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 12th Oct, 2022 ) :Small and Medium Enterprises Development Authority (SMEDA) in collaboration with Pakistan Tourism Development Corporation (PTDC) is going to hold a four-day "Festival of North" (Gojal Chapter) on October 20-23, 2022 in Gilgit Baltistan to promote SMEs in the province.

It was informed by Hashim Raza, Chief Executive Officer of SMEDA while addressing a press conference here at SMEDA Head Office on Wednesday. He said that in the wake of recent floods and drop in tourist activity, SMEDA, PTDC and Government of Gilgit Baltistan had joined hands to support small businesses of upper Hunza through tourism promotion. The festivities would be spread across various towns across Gojal valley, he said adding that the event titled as "Festival of the North" would be continued as an annual episode by focusing on improvement and diversification of the products and services of the local SMEs.

The SMEDA CEO said that tourism was closely linked with SMEs in hospitality services, tour guides, sports activities and products like souvenirs, eatables and handicrafts. But they had not been able to take full advantage of the growing tourism in Pakistan due to the limited range of products and services, which also lacked in product development, diversification, categories, packaging, visibility and marketing. Though services had been improved but were still not at par with world standards, he added.

Hashim Raza told that Tourism had been identified in the recent SME Policy as a priority sector, therefore, promotion of SMEs within the tourism sector was part of the main action plan of the SME Policy and Festival of the North would prove to be a strong opening towards this direction by bringing all stakeholders of the sector together.

The Festival would include a lot of attractions for visitors as well as for SMEs that included SME stalls, local foods, cultural music, bonfire, camping eats.

"This is our first year and we will focus on bringing tourists to SMEs at the festival," he said adding that products would be displayed and through other attractions, people would be encouraged to buy SME products and services.

Since it was not a one-time activity therefore, they would work with local SMEs throughout the next year and keep improving their standards for a bigger better festival in 2023, he vowed.

Responding to a questions on women's participation, Hashim said that SMEDA was already supporting women entrepreneurs of Gilgit-Baltistan through capacity building and participation in national exhibitions, the stalls of women entrepreneurs would also be part of the festival.

To another question, the CEO SMEDA said that at government level, Ministry of Industries & Production and GB government were fully supporting the SMEDA initiative and PTDC had partnered as a main organizer along with the private sector that had also stepped up with active participation.