Vice President of Federation of Pakistan Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FPCCI) Zahid Saeed has called for improved economic ranking to attract more foreign investment because foreign investors prefer other countries due to ease of doing business.
"In order to improve the doing business index, we need to simplify business procedures, make it easy and time-saving with use of technology," he proposed, speaking at a session on 'Incorporation and Filing Process of Companies,' jointly organized by FPCCI and Securities & Exchange Commission of Pakistan (SECP).
Zahid referred to the statistics of the World Bank's Ease of Doing Business, which ranked Pakistan 147th among 190 economies and lowest among the regional economies.
Additional Registrar and Incharge CRO, Muhammad Naeem Khan, said that SECP had revamped the entire legislative framework for corporate sector which fostered ease of doing business and recently introduced unified incorporation process which accelerated the process of incorporation of companies. He said SECP has linked its incorporation system with Federal Board of Revenue which simplifies the procedure of e-filing and reduced the time of registration of companies to four working hours.
In their presentation, the representatives of SECP shared various features and benefits of combined and individual process of company registration including the e-filing procedure of incorporation for local and foreign nationals and company registration, creation of account, electronically submission of form and information to be filed/ submitted under Companies Ordinance 1984. FPCCI's vice president Saeeda Bano and other prominent businessmen also attended the session where other issues pertaining to trade bodies also came under discussion.