LAHORE: Increasing price of the land owing to mushroom growth of housing societies has been hampering industrialization in the country, said Adil Mehmood President of Sheikhupura Chamber of Commerce and Industries.
The president has demanded of the government to make a mechanism for judicious use of land for promoting industrialization instead of holding the precious land for housing societies many of which take years to become fully populated.
He suggested the government to provide land to industrialists on subsidized rates to give impetus to expansion of existing industries.
Adil Mehmood said the Sheikhupura Chamber has increased its interaction with all stakeholders to resolve problems of industries and in this connection a delegation of the chamber visited Civil Services Academy to apprise the officers of industrialists’ problems.
“We have asked the academy to arrange a visit of its batch to chamber to ensure effective communication with the industrialists,” he said.
Such interactions will go a long way to resolve the issues by bridging the communication gap as all governments evolve very attractive policies which exist in papers only and seldom put into practice due to lack of interactions, Adil explained.
He said One Window Operation has been introduced many years ago but still industrialists face three to four months to get NOCs for establishment of infrastructure.
He said that strong infrastructure governance can end waste of time in industry development.
“Delays in procedures are often systemic and money and time are lost because of inefficiencies. These inefficiencies are closely linked to poor infrastructure governance,” he said.
Adil asked the government to double its efforts for industrialization as hundreds of jobs could be lost this year in small- and medium-sized enterprises - the backbone of the economy - due to the coronavirus pandemic.
“At the same time, CPEC has entered its second phase, small- and medium-sized enterprises would attract Chinese investment after the relocation of industries from China to Pakistan,” Adil said adding that at that crucial time all stakeholders should pool their efforts to take a huge benefit from this relocation of industries.—PR
Copyright Business Recorder, 2020