Newly elected cabinet of the Rawalpindi Chamber of Commerce and Industry (RCCI) assumed charge on Tuesday. Abdul Rauf Chaudhry replaced Dr Hassan Sarosh Akram as president, while Sheikh Muhammad Hafeez and Aamir Iqbal elected as Senior vice president and vice president replaced Kashif Shabir and Naveed Javed respectively.
The 24-member Central Executive had elected working body of the chamber after 14 of its members were elected unopposed on December 6. The elections were to be held on December 13 for 14 vacant seats of the committee. But the opposition Business Group decided to boycott the polls hence all the 14 members of the Mian Pervaiz Aslam Group returned unopposed.
The 14 members of the executive committee included Abdul Ghafoor Khan, Chaudhry Abdul Majeed, Sanaullah, Sajid Mumtaz Khan, Muhammad Nasir Mirza, Chaudhry Pervaiz Ahmed Warraich, S M Zahid Amin, Zafar Mehmood Chaudhry, Muhammad Fayaz Qureshi, Zahid Hussain Kazmi, Azfar Kamal, Qazi Dost Muhammad Khan, Zahoor Ahmed Malik and Sh M Yousuf.
The previous body including Dr Hassan Sarosh Akram, Kashif Shabir and Naveed Javed handed over the chamber medals to newly elected working body as a sign of their retirement in Annual General Meeting of the chamber. Talking to reporters, Abdul Rauf Chaudhry said that RCCI would continue to play role as bridge between business community and the government to resolve the problems of the business community.
Abdul Rauf Chaudhry, a Chemical Engineer, graduated from Dhaka University, said that industrialisation was imperative for economic growth of the country and to eliminate two gigantic problems of poverty and unemployment. "We will make all out efforts for the industrialisation of the area and Rawat Industrial Estate would be establish on modern lines", he said.
Chamber has played an important role in highlighting the problems of the business community and development of RIE and increasing relations with different neighbouring countries, he said. Abdul Rauf Chaudhry is 45th president of the chamber who got elected first time and unopposed as 24-member Executive Committee has reposed confidence on him and elected him unanimously.
Former Finance Minister and Senator Ehsanul Haq Piracha is only person in this region who got the berth of president RCCI for five times. Besides Ehsanul Haq Piracha, former Senator and president FPCCI, Ilyas Bilour, former finance minister Mian Habibullah, Tariq Naseem president FPCCI and former Zonal Chairman of FPCCI Suhail Altaf Khan had served chamber as president.