Challenges in agriculture, industrial sectors: private sector needs to enhance awareness: MCCI

President Multan Chamber of Commerce & Industry (MCCI) Anis Ahmed Sheikh has said that there was a dire need for industrial, commercial and agricultural sectors to meet the awareness challenges and issues faced or likely to be faced by them if they intend to remain competitive.
In order top raise the capacity of the private sector in Punjab, the awareness level of key decisions' makers within the private sector needs to be enhanced, he said while addressing joint meeting of members of MCCI and representatives of Planning & development board, Finance, Industries, TEVTA, Labour and PRMP.
HE said that Punjab Government had established a Public Private Partnership (PPP) Cell which would assist the P& D department in formulation and development of policy related to this task.
Khawaja Muhammad Yousaf, former President MCCI, said that it was an admitted fact that Pakistan had progressed by leaps and bounds during last five years but its fruit could not be reached to common.
He said that gap between the poor and the rich had widened and a number of groups of big industrialists were emerged but small and medium industrialists totally diminished.
He said that raw material in Pakistan was costly than India while power, gas tariff was also high and Pakistani manufacturers were unable to compete the China, India, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and Thailand in world Market.
Government should frame far-reaching reforming laws and it should give incentives to the small & medium manufacturers for their survival. He said that Smeda had lost its utility. He said that inflation was increasing due to reduction in production continuously and existing policies of the Government were creating problems for the small investors instead of resolving them.
Private Sector Development Punjab Resource Management Programme (Planning and Development Department)'s Deputy Director Salman Mufti shed light on the reforms introduced by the present regime and said that government had constituted a committee of experts to establish at least 100 institutions on the pattern of Coop Bank which would frame policies as per demand of the 21st century so that Private sector could play its role freely and properly.
Government had also formed a private sector Development committee headed by Chairman Planning & Development Board while secretaries of Finance, P& D Department, Law, Industries, C&I, Environment, Labour, Tevta PRMP, Presidents of Chamber of Commerce and Industry, Multan, Sialkot, Faisalabad, Rawalpindi and Lahore would be member of the committee.
This committee would be expanded in due course of time, he added. It would be proper forum to chalk-out an action plan to resolve their problems. Iqbal Hassan, Anwar Salim Keen, Shahid Pervez Butt, Joint Director Industries and SMEDA's Adnan Ahmed also spoke.