The Lahore Chamber of Commerce and Industry (LCCI) has welcomed the revolutionary steps taken by Securities & Exchange Commission of Pakistan (SECP) to facilitate company formation and said that these initiatives would give boost to the trade and economic activities in the country.
The LCCI President Sheikh Muhammad Arshad in a statement on Tuesday said the SECP move to ease the process of company registration would reduce the difficulties of businessmen in getting their businesses registered with the SECP. The initiative of obtaining digital signature from National Institutional Facilitation Technologies (NIFT) online will drastically reduce the time for company formation as the users will no longer have to submit manual request for digital signatures, he said.
The LCCI Senior Vice President Almas Hyder said that the provision of making payments through credit cards would expedite the payment process as the users will not have to make payments through the challan forms at the bank counters. He said that substantial reduction in registration fee for companies with small capital base will substantially increase the number of new business registrations.
He said the opening of facilitation centres in Sialkot and Abbotabad is very heartening and will definitely increase the new business registrations. The Commission has taken a giant leap forward in terms of providing world class facilities to the business community. The SECP move will ensure simplicity and facilitation to businessmen besides improving Pakistan ranking in ease of doing business. The other government departments should follow the SECP who are inevitable for the businessmen to start and carry out their businesses, he said. The Commission will not only facilitate the business community but will also affect positively to the economy of the country, he added.
The Lahore Chamber is ready to supplement the efforts of the SECP aimed at promotion of business activities in the country. He said that starting from the very contribution of bridging the gap between the business community and the government, LCCI has always tried to play a supportive role using its good office to work for the prosperity of the country and to ease the procedures for doing business in the country.