President Rawalpindi Chamber of Commerce and Industry (RCCI), Syed Ali Raza Saeed Shah has said that government should take the business community onboard in policymaking for the economic revival of the country. Implementation of Reformed General Sales Tax should be postponed, as the economy presently can not afford load of new taxes.
This he said during a press conference here at his office on Monday, adding that priority of the entire nation must be to work for the early recovery from huge loss of $43 billion caused by flood, which damaged the industrial and agricultural infrastructure badly.
"For the normalcy and revival of infrastructure, entire chambers of commerce and industry should make integrated efforts in collaboration with the concerned public sector departments and attract investors to resolve the business community's problems by setting up new projects," he added.
President RCCI feared that the country might face acute shortfall due to the havoc played by floods as the wheel of industrial growth has almost stopped. "Energy crises together with law and order situation jolted the economy so badly that enhanced the rate of unemployment in the country," he noted.
Now, the government may adopt such policy after consultation with the stakeholders, which would restart sustainable economic growth. He said tax regime would have to be streamlined by broadening tax net and reducing indirect taxes. "But first of all, the state of law and order should be improved as no industry could excel without it", he stressed.
On the occasion, Shah announced that RCCI would establish a new industrial zone to enhance trade-related activities, besides organising exhibitions in and outside of the country to tap international market, especially those in the North American belt. But the industry has to give priority to research and development, he added.
He demanded of the government to set up a separate industrial zone as well as state-of-the-art exhibition centre in Rawalpindi region to increase production. He said that at present, about 400 to 500 industrial units are functioning in Rawalpindi of which three sectors ie, pharmaceutical, marble and furniture have been making valuable contributions for the country.-PR