ISLAMABAD: Federal Minister for Finance and Revenue Senator Muhammad Aurangzeb on Wednesday chaired the sixth meeting of the Access to Finance (A2F) Steering Committee at the Finance Division, reviewing progress on affordable and inclusive financing across key sectors.<\/p>\n
According to a press release issued by the Finance Division on October 28, 2026, the meeting reviewed financing progress in small and medium enterprises, agriculture, exports, housing and the Prime Minister\u2019s flagship schemes, including Apna Ghar, Zarkhez-e and the Pakistan Accelerated Vehicle Electrification (PAVE) Scheme.<\/p>\n
The committee highlighted the role of access to finance in promoting economic inclusion, entrepreneurship, employment generation and poverty reduction. It also reviewed progress on earlier agreed actions and received updates from sectoral and functional sub-committees, with focus on implementation and remaining bottlenecks.<\/p>\n
On SME financing, the committee was informed that outstanding financing had reached PKR 1.148 trillion as of October 23, 2026, including PKR 538 billion for small enterprises. It also reviewed the Small and Medium Enterprises Development Authority\u2019s capacity-building roadmap, with emphasis on financial literacy, better documentation, accounting support and digital tools to improve SME readiness for formal financing.<\/p>\n
SMEDA was encouraged to work in close coordination with lenders and regulators to extend organised support to small and medium enterprises.<\/p>\n
In agriculture finance, the meeting noted that outstanding credit had reached PKR 1.329 trillion, while the number of borrowers stood at around 3.5 million. Under the Prime Minister\u2019s Zarkhez-e: Asaan Zarai Qarza Scheme, 20,176 loan applications amounting to PKR 8.674 billion had been approved. Of these, 6,132 collateral-free loans worth around PKR 2.34 billion had been disbursed to smallholder farmers.<\/p>\n
The committee also discussed steps to strengthen livestock and dairy financing and expand private-sector participation across agricultural value chains.<\/p>\n
Reviewing housing finance, the committee noted that outstanding financing had reached PKR 455 billion, benefiting 241,500 borrowers. Under the Prime Minister\u2019s Apna Ghar Program, 86,896 applications involving PKR 511 billion in financing had been approved, while 15,584 loans worth around PKR 91 billion had been disbursed.<\/p>\n
The meeting discussed measures to speed up disbursements and address housing supply constraints, including financing for builders, developers and under-construction projects.<\/p>\n
The committee also reviewed the implementation of the Pakistan Accelerated Vehicle Electrification Scheme, which is aimed at promoting affordable electric two- and three-wheeler mobility. Under PAVE, 21,918 applications involving around PKR 3.06 billion in financing had been approved. A total of 5,506 loans worth PKR 1.093 billion had been disbursed, while 3,263 electric vehicles had been delivered to customers.<\/p>\n
Digital initiatives to improve credit assessment and lending also came under review, including ongoing pilots for SME credit scoring and exporter financing. The finance minister stressed secure, consent-based data sharing, proper confidentiality safeguards and timely resolution of data-linkage issues to enable wider use of digital and cash-flow-based lending.<\/p>\n
The meeting also discussed legal and regulatory measures to strengthen the financing framework, with focus on improving recovery mechanisms, addressing lending risks and facilitating financing for underserved segments.<\/p>\n
Senator Aurangzeb appreciated the progress achieved so far in housing finance generally, and under the Prime Minister\u2019s Apna Ghar Scheme in particular. However, he urged relevant stakeholders, including financial institutions and implementing agencies, to substantially increase efforts in SME and agriculture financing.<\/p>\n
He underlined the need for greater urgency, stronger execution and faster disbursements, saying expanded access to finance must result in tangible benefits for businesses, farmers and underserved segments, backed by effective risk-sharing arrangements and timely implementation of agreed reforms.<\/p>\n
The meeting was attended by the federal secretaries of finance, housing and works, and national food security and research, the Governor State Bank of Pakistan, Chairman Securities and Exchange Commission of Pakistan, Chief Executive Officer Karandaaz Pakistan, Chief Executive Officer SMEDA, and senior representatives of the Finance Division, SBP and SECP.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Finance Minister Senator Muhammad Aurangzeb reviewed progress on inclusive financing and urged faster disbursements in SME and agriculture sectors.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":21749,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-21750","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-business"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.peakpoint.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21750","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.peakpoint.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.peakpoint.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.peakpoint.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.peakpoint.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21750"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.peakpoint.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21750\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.peakpoint.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/21749"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.peakpoint.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21750"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.peakpoint.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21750"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.peakpoint.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21750"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}