Pakistan's business community should prepare itself to be part of CPEC-connecting new international value chains and invest in research and development to enhance its capacity to meet the challenges and reap the opportunities the Chinese initiative was set to create in the near future.
This was the crux of a seminar at Institute of Policy Studies (IPS) titled "CPEC Opportunities and Impediments: Prospects for Business Community", which was addressed by Zaheeruddin Dar, CBI Expert & Trainer, Centre for International Entrepreneurship and Trade as the key speaker while Saeed Qureshi, former federal secretary, chaired the session.
Advising the traders and industrialists to augment their production competency by improving their research-based design and development, Dar urged the business owners to must realize the potential associated with CPEC, which was the most important of the six components of the greater 'One Belt One Road (OBOR)' initiative of China. He emphasized that the business community in Pakistan should proactively build its capacity to ride upon the immense opportunities coming up with CPEC, which despite being a very big initiative itself, should not be looked in isolation, but in line with its other sister components which include the 21st Century Maritime Silk Route, Bangladesh-China-India-Myanmar Economic Corridor, China-Mongolia-Russia Economic Corridor, China-Central Asia-West Asia Economic Corridor (Eurasian Land Bridge) and China-Indochina Peninsula Economic Corridor.
Advising Pakistan's business community in light of the given scenario, Qureshi said that the trade and industry in Pakistan should minimize its dependence on the government, and start putting in the hard yards beforehand to prepare it to avail best of the opportunities when they arrive. Through joint ventures with Chinese businesses we can enhance our capacity, productivity and revenues manifold, he remarked, urging the business community to conduct a comprehensive study about the potential benefits of CPEC to local trade and industry.
China on the other hand, he revealed, had studied this feasibility even for Pakistan well in advance, according to which energy, food, agro-based industry, livestock, construction, steel, transport and logistics, light engineering, plastics, value-added textile, mining and ore, non-ferrous metals, assembly operations and IT services were few of the key sectors in the country that were identified to benefit from CPEC immensely.-PR