LAHORE: The Small and Medium Enterprises Development Authority (SMEDA) finalised plans to set up fruits, vegetables and condiments processing and mango pulping centres at Naushehroferoze and Mirpurkhas with a total cost of Rs 535.106 million and Rs 575.4 million respectively.
Chief Executive Officer SMEDA, Sher Ayub, has advised the Provincial office of SMEDA-Sindh to start implementation on these projects within the current financial year.
The main objectives of the schemes are to provide common facility services in ripening, sterilization, pulping, sorting, grading and packaging of fruits and vegetables, CEO SMEDA said adding that State of the art agro-processing machinery, costing around Rs 623 million, will be installed for the two model facilitates, which will enable local stakeholders to increase their profitability in domestic markets and gain access to international markets for value-added horticulture produce.
Meanwhile, Provincial Chief SMEDA Sindh has reported to the CEO SMEDA that Bahria Foundation (BF) and SMEDA are working together for creating better infrastructure facilities to promote the horticulture sector in Sindh. BF, Deputy Managing Director Syed Imdad Imam Jafri in a recent meeting held at the SMEDA-Sindh office has acknowledged the valuable cooperation of SMEDA in the establishment of a modern Cold Storage (CA) facility by BF in Karachi with a cost of around Rs 350 million.
He told that the deputy managing director BF had expressed further expressed deep interest in establishing infrastructure projects in the logistics, power, auto-assembling and tourism sectors. SMEDA will assist BF in project viability assessment and the establishment of projects for electric motorcycle assembly, wind power, cement and tourism services in Tharparkar, the Provincial Chief SMEDA-Sindh added.
