Manufacturing Sector need for implementation of the abovementioned reforms and policies if the target of 8 percent growth in the Charter of the Economy by the manufacturing sector is to be met by 2024-25. 21.4. Supporting the SMEs Small and medium enterprises(SMEs) have been identified as production units with employment up to 10 workers, as per the Factories Act. However, the SBP has multiple criteria for identifying an SME. The number of employees should not exceed 250; the value of assets should be less than Rs 100 million and sales turnover up to Rs 300 million. The SBP definition covers a much larger number of establishments in the category of SMEs. The focus here is on SME sector in manufacturing. According to the Labor Force Survey by the PBS of 2017-18, the total employment in the manufacturing sector was 9.9 million. It is estimated that 63 percent of this employment, over 6.2 million, is in SMEs. The value­added by these SMEs is Rs 755 billion as of 2020-21, equivalent to 1.6 percent of the GDP. However, these estimates are biased downwards. The last Economic Census was conducted in 2005. This census reported the total number of SMEs, as per the PBS definition, at over 2.9 million. The number of SMEs in the manufacturing sector was almost 0.5 million, with average employment per unit of 3.3 workers. As such, there are probably 1.9 million SMEs currently in the manufacturing sector and the overall number in the country is close to 5 million. The Economic Census also indicated that within the manufacturing sector, the largest share of 43 percent was in textiles wearing apparel and leather industries. Other major industries, with large number of SMEs, are food, beverages and tobacco, manufacture of fabricated metal products and handicrafts. These SMEs in the manufacturing sector have a strong export orientation and contribute, either directly or indirectly, to almost 25 percent of Pakistan’s manufactured exports. Therefore, supporting their operations will strengthen the country’s capacity for export. The commercial banking system has provided only limited support to SMEs. The total outstanding credit to SMEs in the country is Rs 444 billion as of March 2021. The share of manufacturing SMEs is 40 percent. The share of SMEs in total private sector credit is only 6.6 percent, despite their major contribution to non-agricultural employment and significant share in exports. The total number of SME borrowers is just over 300,000. Therefore, only 5 percent of the SMEs in the country currently have access to credit. The performance of SMEs has been adversely affected by the successive attacks of COVID-19. According to NEPRA, electricity consumption by industrial units fell by over 10 209