The newly elected governing body of the Karachi Chamber of Commerce and Industry (KCCI) will assume office on September 29th under President Mohammad Haroon Agar will face several tough challenges including ever increasing incidents of extortion of money, ever increasing cost of doing business and tariff of power and gas, sliding down exports, power and gas shortage, closure of industries, inflation, high oil prices, law and order and slowly closure of industrial units.
Members said that the new governing body of KCCI must make efforts to resolve issues of growing economic challenges along with increasing incidents of extortion of money, street crimes and ever increasing cost of manufacturing and cost of doing business. They said the country passing through serious crises and manufacturing sector moving nosedive and no new investment coming in. They said it is very unfortunate that the government machinery seen helpless before criminals and failed to apprehend them to normalise law-and-order condition and provide relief to general pubic.
They were of the view that industry is already under extreme pressure due to consistent power shortage, prevailing law-and-order situation, day to day shutdown of industry due to strike or power and gas outages where foreign and local invertors are hesitating to invest. Even foreign investors and traders are reluctant to visit Pakistan. A meeting of managing committee of KCCI was held on Thursday and elected office bearers for year 2012-2013, Muhammad Haroon Agar as President, Shamim Ahmed Firpo as Senior Vice President and Nasir Mehmood as Vice President unopposed.
Leader of the business community and Businessmen Group (BMG) Siraj Kasim Teli nominated them for the seats. The group has been winning all the seats unopposed in KCCI elections for the last 6 years. September 27th was the last date for receiving nominations for office bearers. On this date only one nomination was received against each seat.
Annual general meeting of the chamber will be held on September 29th. Earlier all the 15 candidates of the Businessmen Group (BMG has been declared elected unopposed as members of managing committee KCCI for two years.
According to unofficial results those who are declared elected unopposed as member of managing committee include Mohammed Haroon Agar, Zafar Saeed B.P, Abdul Jabbar Dalal, Alamgir A. Shaikh, Asif Iqbal Bega, Muhammad Arif, Anis Memon, Muffasar Atta Malik, Mohammad Saqib, Shahzad Mobeen, Jahangir Shahid, Farhan Hanif, Abid Nisar, Mansoor Sulaiman and Zahid Iqbal.