Micro and small enterprises (MSE) are playing pivotal role in socio-economic development and poverty alleviation in Turkey that could benefit Pakistan arrest the growing poverty and unemployment. This was stated by Vice Chancellor University of Agriculture, Faisalabad Prof. Dr. M. Iqbal Zafar while holding meeting with Turkish Professor Dr. Mithat Direk from Selcuk University, Konya Turkey who visited his office on Tuesday afternoon.

Dr. M. Iqbal Zafar told the visiting Turkish Scientist that UAF academicians were conducting research projects on “Rural Entrepreneurship through Cooperation; lesion to be learnt from Turkish Experience”. He said that the Higher Education Commission was providing funds for social integration and outreach programs to inculcate the rural youth engage themselves in the rural enterprises. He told that UAF team organized seminars in six villages of three districts like Sheikhupura, Nankana and Faisalabad to share with them the success stories of the Turkish Model.
Unfolding his future plans at UAF, the Turkish Scientist Prof. Dr. Mithat Direk told that he is going to give seminar on January 18th on self-sustaining rural enterprises to further shed light on the Turkish MSE Model. In Turkey, he said, the government has created trade mark villages to boost relevant industry and business in the area. Describing the small enterprises as engines of economic growth, he said that it has the potential to generate employment and to alleviate poverty in an environment of increasing unemployment and widening income inequality. Elaborating his views, he further said that new technologies and restructuring of production processes in the world favor small enterprises in comparison with large enterprises, particularly since the late 1970s.
Prof. Dr. Sultan Ali Adil Director Institute of Agri & Resource Economics, Dr. Muhammad Khalid Bashir Principal Investigator SIOP Project and Dr. Asghar Ali were also present in the meeting.