LAHORE: Nobody will be allowed to play havoc with the Federation of Pakistan Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FPCCI), said SAARC Chamber of Commerce and Industry Vice President Iftikhar Ali Malik.
Malik, also the chairman of United Business Forum, was addressing the executive committee meeting of the FPCCI. The Businessmen Panel also got their agenda passed with a thumping majority while the rival group secured only five votes.
Malik said that some elements were trying to use FPCCI for their vested interests, but business community has rejected them and chosen true representatives.
He said the country was passing through a critical time. He said that political instability, severe energy crisis, high rate of markup and high banking spread were impeding the country’s economic growth. The FPCCI would focus on these issues and give suggestions to the government in this regard.
He also said that tight monetary policy was not the only solution to fast increasing inflation but it could be tackled easily by increasing production and cutting unnecessary expenditures. He said that for increasing production, the business community would have to spend its energies in increasing exports, particularly the export of non-traditional items.
He said that high mark-up was destroying the industrial sector and this would be taken up with authorities concerned for the solution. He said that simplification of taxes would also be on his priority list.
He said that the main objective of FPCCI was promotion of trade and industry, adding that all available resources would be utilised for economic turnaround.
