President Islamabad Chamber of Commerce and Industry (ICCI), Mahfooz Elahi, said that in today's competitive world, modern infrastructure system plays active role in promoting the economy. He urged the government to encourage private sector for increasing pace of development of infrastructure adding that limited fiscal space is constraining government's capacity to improve the state of infrastructure effectively and by giving participation to the private sector would greatly help in overcoming such constraints, says a press release.
The President said that the state of infrastructure is a critical factor holding back rapid economic growth, which needs to be upgraded through public-private partnership. He said the absence of public sector initiatives in an array of sectors including mass transit, railway, oil and gas exploration, water supply and sanitation needs a clear conducive government policy to facilitate private sector investment. He said by encouraging the role of private sector in infrastructure projects, government resources could be freed to provide funds in areas and sectors needed for the socio-economic uplift and stabilisation of the less advantaged citizens. Thus the state can turn to its core business of providing good governance, enhancing knowledge and skills, and providing basic needs for its citizens, he added.
He stressed for the need of providing appropriate incentives and support through a combination of policy and institutional reforms and financing modalities to attract the private sector in financing and managing of infrastructure projects so that Pakistan could overcome its infrastructure constraints, which will enable the country to move towards speedy economic growth.

Copyright Associated Press of Pakistan, 2010

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