ICRU, WB's pilot project 'Business Entry Regulations Mapping' begins in Punjab

The Investment Climate Reform Unit (ICRU), which is part of the Planning & Development Department, Punjab, in collaboration with the World Bank has started a pilot project "Business Entry Regulations Mapping in Punjab". ICRU Managing Director Maleeha Bangash revealed this while apprising the members of Lahore Economic Journalists Association (LEJA) of the ICRU's objectives, performance and achievements. The unit was established with the support of World Bank Group and Department for International Development (DFID), UK.
ICRU took different initiatives including public private dialogue, strategic investment initiatives, investment climate ranking for cities, doing business-business regulations mapping and advocacy & outreach. These initiatives are aimed at helping the ICRU to become a repository of all regulations & procedures associated with starting, conducting business in the Punjab, she added. She said the ICRU has been assigned the task to create an enabling environment besides facilitating the existing and potential domestic and foreign investors so that the Punjab province could be made investment hub.
Highlighting the impediments hampering the business start-ups, the managing director said that cumbersome and complicated procedure for getting a company/firm registered with the public sector organizations is a major issue while access to finance, availability of professionally skilled workforce are also other problems for initiation of a business not only in Pakistan but also in the Punjab province. She said the Unit has also planned to address gaps learning from global best practices, by carrying out province wide exercise, focusing on new sub-sectors. Apart from this, the ICRU also conducted panel discussion titled "An Enabled Business Environment besides holding Interactive Workshop/Stakeholder Consultation on Draft Industrial Strategy and breakout sessions on environment enablers like access to finance and labour productivity. A number of interventions and inputs were devised and incorporated in the final Industrial Policy draft, she said.
Maleeha Bangash said that the ICRU is also collaborating with DFID for the Women's Economic Inclusion Programme (WEIP) in Punjab besides facilitating in business enabler that include access to finance vehicles for SMEs, women enterprises, heritage for tourism, endowment for environment friendly businesses and agri-business innovation fund. The ICRU is also looking towards setting up and operationalization of working groups under private-public dialogue mechanism apart from conducting road shows and investment enabling seminars across the province, she said. "We also intend to collaborate with a different public sector departs for structuring special investment vehicles/funds and TEVTA to launch initiatives for improving access to skilled labour. Implementation of doing business reform recommendations for province emanating from private-public dialogue mechanism is also part of our programme," she maintained.
"We have not only sought inputs from the public sector organizations like Environment Protection Department, Agriculture Delivery Unit of the Punjab government, Industries, Commerce & Investment Department but also contacted with the Overseas Investors Chamber of Commerce and Industry, Pakistan Business Council, Rawalpindi and Lahore Chambers of Commerce and Industry, United National Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO), Department for International Trade (DFIT) of UK for their assistance, she added.