Newly elected President Asrar Ahmed Awan and Senior Vice President Khawaja Muhammad Usman Multan Chamber of Commerce and Industry (MCCI) took charge of their offices in an impressive but simple ceremony held here, on Wednesday night. They vowed to educate the entrepreneurs for boosting up their exports and earn maximum foreign exchange through value added items.
Later, they expressed in detail their priorities for the coming year at Annual General Meeting held after the ceremony. Asrar Ahmed Awan while addressing the meeting at the MCCI said that tight monetary policy was not the only solution to control fast increasing inflation rate, instead it could be tackled easily by increasing production and cutting unnecessary expenditures.
He said that for increasing production, the business community would have to spend its energies for increasing exports, particularly the export of non-traditional items needs to be focused. He said that high mark-up was crushing the whole industrial sector like anything and this would be taken up with all the concerned authorities for a solution.
He said that simplification of procedures of taxes would also be on his priority list as existing number of taxes totalling 56 was higher than anywhere in the world. He said that the main objective of the MCCI was promotion of trade and industry and all available resources would be utilised for economic turnaround as the economic meltdown had now started taking its toll and everybody is suffering badly.
He said that Research and Development (R&D) was an area, if it was given proper attention it could do miracles. He said that he would, in collaboration with his fellow businessmen, work for the promotion of Research culture in the country. He said that education sector was direly in need of reforms and he would leave no stone unturned to bring uniformity in education sector.
He said that a number of parallel systems were in vogue in the country and until and unless a single system was implemented, we would not be able to achieve and taste progress and prosperity in real terms. Awan said that MCCI would also raise its voice for the construction of parking plazas in the city as almost all the city traffic related problems were because of non-availability of proper parking spaces.
Vice President Khwaja Muhammad Usman assured full co-operation with the President in resolving the problems faced by the business community. Earlier, speaking on the occasion, the outgoing President Anis Ahmed Sheikh had presented a detailed report of his performance during the year.
He said that USAID was launching development projects of two billion US dollars in Southern Punjab, while Italian government intended to introduce modern method of packing of dates, besides, providing funds for the conservation of cultural heritage of Multan.
He said that Mian Mughis Ahmed Sheikh has established an updraught Kiln to bake the mud-pottery. Project of "Aik HunarAik Nagar" was being completed with an estimated cost of Rs 6.55 million, while classes of bule pottery had been started in Multan Chamber. He said that with the efforts of MCCI, Multan Airport was being upgraded, Head Muhammad wala bridge over river Chenab was being constructed.
Engineering, Science and Technology and women universities were being established in Multan. Faisalabad Motorway project is underway while Multan Television centre was successfully set up. Prime minister has also approved a bridge at Nishtar Ghat to connect Rajanpur with Rahimyarkhan.
The Election Commission headed by Khawaja Muhammad Yousaf formally announced the names of the winners from both the Corporate and Associate class. The house adopted a resolution against an increase in the power tariff. The house thanked the FBR for extending the last date for filing of income returns and reducing the price of petroleum products.