ISLAMABAD, Oct 7: Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif on Wednesday directed provinces to accelerate the digitisation of land records on the Punjab model to make housing finance easier, faster and more transparent for banks and borrowers.
Chairing a high-level review meeting on financing for housing, agriculture and small and medium enterprises, the prime minister said digitised land records would help remove one of the key hurdles in housing lending by improving verification and transparency.
He also directed authorities to remove bottlenecks in the flow of credit to housing, agriculture and SME sectors and make the overall lending system more efficient.
The prime minister ordered that the SME portal be made operational by the end of November to facilitate lending to small and medium businesses.
Officials said the portal would allow real-time monitoring of bank lending, letters of credit and other business facilitation measures.
Shehbaz Sharif also asked the Small and Medium Enterprises Development Authority to take stronger steps to improve SME capacity, promote modern technology, raise productivity and help businesses connect with global value chains.
The meeting reviewed the lending performance of the National Bank of Pakistan and First Women Bank.
The prime minister praised the National Bank of Pakistan for achieving a 76% approval rate in housing finance and directed its newly appointed president to improve performance further by hiring capable professionals and taking departmental action against employees failing to deliver results.
Officials told the meeting that 71,690 loans worth Rs426 billion had so far been approved under the Prime Minister’s Apna Ghar Scheme, while Rs76 billion had been disbursed to 13,214 beneficiaries.
The government has set a target of providing Rs700 billion in financing for 125,000 housing units during the current year.
On agricultural credit, the meeting was informed that total financing had reached Rs1.352 trillion, benefiting around 3.455 million people.
The government aims to raise agricultural lending to Rs1.5 trillion and increase the number of beneficiaries to 4.5 million by June 2027.
For SMEs, officials said Rs1.137 trillion had been provided to around 350,000 business owners so far.
The target is to increase SME financing to Rs1.5 trillion and expand the number of borrowing enterprises to 565,000 by June 2027.
The meeting was also briefed on revised SME regulations, simplified housing finance procedures, risk-sharing arrangements, supply-chain financing and improved data-sharing mechanisms.
Officials said digital lending systems were being expanded so that customers seeking smaller loans would no longer need to make repeated visits to bank branches.
Federal ministers Rana Tanveer Hussain, Ahad Khan Cheema, Muhammad Aurangzeb, Riaz Hussain Pirzada and Attaullah Tarar, Adviser to the Prime Minister Haroon Akhtar, State Bank Governor Jameel Ahmad and other senior officials attended the meeting.