Pak-China Joint Chamber of Commerce and Industry (PCJCCI) on Thursday stressed the need to replicate transit oriented development (TOD) model successfully implemented in some of the populous countries like America, China and India.
"China is ranked amongst the finest in the world as far as connectivity, management and reduction of jams is concerned," he added.
PCJCCI President Shah Faisal Afridi in a statement said the TOD is an integrated community development model focused on facilitating people and places by connecting them to one another through a robust multi-model transportation network. He declared TOD model as the best way to resolve transport issues such as vehicle dependency, peak oil, global warming, fuel utilisation pollution hazards and regional connectivity," he added.
Regarding infrastructural reforms especially in the transport sector, Afridi said that such reforms are required to enhance industrial growth and allow millions of rural residents to be absorbed in the urban labour force.
He said that TOD projects, improve transit options by giving easy access to the residents towards trains, streetcars and buses for commuting to work elsewhere whereas the commercial components create jobs places that people can access more easily by public transportation.
He pointed out that deficient urban transport and congestion significantly reduce the connectivity between industrial clusters with domestic and international markets. In addition, increased motorization and poor urban planning have resulted in significant pollution and traffic congestion, he lamented.
Afridi regarded mobility as an indicator for development, given that transportation links together the various factors of production in a complex web of relationships between producers and consumers.
He was of the view that the economies with better road and communication networks are positioned more advantageously in terms of overall competitiveness as compared to economies having poor networks.
He said that transportation industry constituting 10 percent of Pakistan's GDP and providing six percent of the employment in the country. It is currently in infrastructural demise, suffering from overcrowded vehicles on roads, low quality, long travelling times, and poor reliability he said, adding that such problems are badly hindering the country's economic growth.
According to statistical reports, inefficiencies in transport and trade logistics of Pakistan are costing roughly 4 to 6 percent of GDP per year, therefore, problems associated with this industry need to be resolved immediately, in order to avoid future impairments, he maintained.
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