The speakers at a two-day workshop on "Clean Production and Pollution Prevention" have recommended setting up of production centers in the industrial clusters of leather, cutlery, surgical instrument and garment sectors.
Small and Medium Enterprise Development Authority (Smeda) has organised the workshop in collaboration with ministry of industries, production and special initiatives and the World Bank.
The concluding ceremony of the workshop held this evening, which was addressed by Shahab Khawaja, Federal Secretary, Industries, Production and Special Initiatives, Shahid Rashid, CEO, Smeda, Paul Martin, Senior Consultant, World Bank, Walter E Weaver, Ms Ana Oestreich, Ms Kalusm Ahmed and Hammad Naqi Khan of WWF-Pakistan.
The speakers recommended that the World Bank and Smeda should initiate a clean production awareness programme as a public-private partnership project. A series of workshops has also been suggested for capacity building of the human resources involved in clean production. Smeda and World Bank have also been requested to subsidise the consultation regarding clean production and pollution prevention for providing SMEs with methodologies of the clean production systems.
The speakers urged that government should share at least 50 percent cost of the environmental compliance certification to attract SMEs towards this emergent need of the hour. The speakers urged the government to provide incentives for promoting use of environment friendly technology and raw materials along with the technical assistance to encourage pollution prevention in the industry.
Shahid Rashid while speaking on the occasion, said the awareness move on clean production and pollution prevention would be continued with the same zeal and assured further measures in partnership with private, public sector to introduce the technology, raw materials and the modern methods for this purpose. He urged the private sector to play a positive role to help government of Pakistan comply with the regulations and procedures set for clean production and pollution prevention in the country.