Despite having huge potential in all sectors, Pakistan could not get its due place mainly because of lacking attention on research and development. Now the situation has taken a positive turn as a large number of businesses after realising the importance of research and development, have started developing their own R& D cells.
The Advisor to the Prime Minister on Science and Technology, Dr Mohammad Ishfaq stated this while addressing at the Lahore Chamber of Commerce and Industry (LCCI) here on Thursday. He said that Pakistan's economic sector direly needs research and development and the government is utilising all available resources to create awareness among the business community regarding the importance of R&D.
Dr Ishfaq said the government is putting in all its energies to bridge the gap between the electricity demand and supply as the recent power crisis had jolted the whole industrial sector.
Speaking on the occasion, the LCCI Senior Vice President Mian Muzaffar Ali said that research and development is of paramount importance in business and industrial growth because the level of competition is rapidly increasing around the world. It is of vital importance for global as well as domestic marketing where companies keep an eagle eye on competitors and customers in order to keep pace with modern trends and analyse the needs, demands and desires of their customers.
The R&D investment reflects a government's or an organisation's willingness to forgo current operations or profit to improve future performance or returns, and its abilities to conduct research and development. In a developing country like Pakistan, industrial R&D becomes more significant particularly at a time when the level of competition, production processes and methods are rapidly changing and advancing on the globe. It is also inevitable to cope with ever-increasing challenges to Pakistan economy posed by the free markets around the world today, he added.
He stressed the need for seriously focus on accelerating the industrial R&D through counselling and co-ordination with universities and R&D bodies in the country so as to meet the global economic challenges.
The LCCI Standing Committee on Science and Technology Chairman Mian Fazal Ahmad said that absence of innovative R&D in business, industry and even agriculture had been responsible for very low fiscal reserves, lower GDP growth, low exports, increasing budget deficits forcing us to seek aid and loans even after the lapse of sixty years of our national life.
A small country like Taiwan has over 200 billion dollar reserves much on the basis of innovative products through R&D. "Had our planners and decision makers adopted policies of R&D culture, high value addition in industrial products & high literacy rate, Pakistan would not have faced economic crunch" he said. In the ongoing free trade scenario under WTO, economy would not be able to sustain in the absence of innovative R&D in the industry and agriculture.
Our R&D institutions in the public sector have been looking to government funding for doing R&D, which has been very insignificant even less than 1 percent of GDP. In fact, if R&D in industry is commercialised and based on real needs of the industry and agriculture, both universities and R&D bodies would not need much of government funding and would be directly financed by the needy industries and business establishments through a match making process, he said.
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