SME loans to double to Rs 2.2 trillion by 2028: PM orders SMEDA plan, Alibaba to train 10,000 firms

Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif has ordered that bank lending to small and medium enterprises be doubled from Rs 1.1 trillion to Rs 2.2 trillion by 2028, Business Recorder reported on Tuesday. The order came at a meeting on SMEDA reforms in Islamabad on Monday 12 October 2026.

What the PM ordered

• SMEDA (the Small and Medium Enterprises Development Authority) must draw up a strategy to make business owners aware of loans, explain how to get financing and encourage new businesses across the country.
• Experts are to prepare feasibility studies for SMEs sector by sector, in local languages, so a shopkeeper in Sukkur or a workshop owner in Gujranwala can read them.
• Development should reach less developed areas, the PM said, to slow migration to the big cities.

What officials say is already under way

Federal ministers Rana Tanveer, Jam Kamal, Musadik Malik, Ahad Cheema, Attaullah Tarar and Chaudhry Salik Hussain attended, with Minister of State for Finance Bilal Kiani and the PM's industries adviser Haroon Akhtar.

What it means for a small business

The target is a direction, not a new loan scheme: no new interest rate, subsidy or eligibility rule was announced. For now, a business that wants credit still goes to a bank's SME desk. Before you sign, run the numbers: our personal loan calculator shows the monthly instalment at any rate, and the 1-year KIBOR that most business loans are priced over currently stands at 12.73%, with the SBP policy rate at 11.5%. If you sell goods, the sales tax calculator helps price invoices correctly.

The doubling would need banks to lend roughly another Rs 1.1 trillion to small firms within about three years. Business Recorder's report did not mention a role for the State Bank or a credit guarantee, so the details of how lenders will be pushed to get there are still to come.