Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif has formally approved a comprehensive framework aimed at expanding and accelerating credit availability for businesses across Pakistan, introducing a performance-based scoring mechanism for commercial financial institutions to evaluate and scale up lending for small and medium-sized enterprises. The decision was finalized during a high-level review meeting held in Islamabad dedicated to evaluating progress on national financial inclusion strategies and enhancing access to capital across vital sectors of the domestic economy. Under the newly approved proposal, the central performance-based scoring system will directly evaluate commercial banks and financial institutions based on their proactive contributions toward expanding credit facilities to small and medium enterprises as well as other priority national sectors. To incentivize participation and drive healthy competition among commercial lenders, Prime Minister Sharif announced that financial institutions demonstrating the highest volume and growth in credit delivery to private enterprises, particularly small businesses, will be recognized with official annual special awards.
The federal government has established ambitious quantitative targets to significantly scale up financing for small and medium enterprises over the next two years. Total bank financing allocated to the sector, which stood at 1.15 trillion rupees in June 2026, is targeted to expand to 2 trillion rupees by June 2028. Alongside the increase in total lending volume, the government aims to dramatically widen the borrower base by raising the total number of active enterprise borrowers from 324,000 to 775,000 over the same period. Furthermore, the share of enterprise financing relative to overall commercial bank lending is projected to rise from its current level of 9.9 percent to 13 percent by mid-2028.
Addressing the participants of the review meeting, Prime Minister Sharif emphasized that affordable and accessible credit remains the foundational requirement for long-term sustainable economic growth and industrialization. He highlighted that expanding financial access for smaller enterprises will directly stimulate private sector investment, increase local manufacturing capacity, generate broad-based employment opportunities, and enhance national export performance. He reiterated that small and medium-sized enterprises serve as the primary engine of the domestic economy, contributing significantly to national output and workforce absorption. To ensure effective implementation and seamless institutional coordination, the review session approved a structured three-tier governance mechanism for the national Access to Finance initiative. Under this framework, an apex high-level committee chaired personally by Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif will oversee policy direction and monitor macro-level execution targets. Operating directly beneath the apex body, a dedicated steering committee co-chaired by Finance Minister Muhammad Aurangzeb and State Bank of Pakistan Governor Jameel Ahmad will formulate and oversee operational strategies.
The governance framework is supported by five sector-specific subcommittees dedicated to overseeing specialized credit programs across priority growth areas. These dedicated subcommittees will focus on small and medium enterprises, agricultural development, information technology, renewable energy projects, and affordable housing finance. Each subcommittee is tasked with identifying sector-specific credit hurdles, recommending regulatory adjustments, and coordinating with commercial lenders to ensure that target lending volumes are efficiently disbursed to eligible market players. The initiative aligns with broader structural economic reforms designed to transition the national economy toward export-led growth and private sector development. Commercial banks have been urged to simplify application procedures, digitize underwriting processes, and introduce innovative collateral-light lending products designed to accommodate the unique financial profiles of small businesses and emerging entrepreneurs. The meeting concluded with directives for relevant ministries and the central bank to finalize operational parameters and immediately roll out the scoring framework to track bank performance in real time.
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