LAHORE: The Lahore Chamber of Commerce and Industry (LCCI) has urged the Punjab government to declare Ferozepur Road Industrial Area as an “Industrial Estate”.
The demand was raised by LCCI Vice President Syed Mahmood Ghaznavi while talking to a 10-member delegation of the Ferozepur Road Industrial Association (FRIA) led by its Patron-in-Chief Adnan Butt at the LCCI. Other members of the delegation were FRIA Chairman Mubasher Naseer Butt, Senior Vice Chairman Khawaja Shahzeb Akram, Vice Chairman Khalid Mahmood and Aamir Anwar.
The FRIA chairman informed the LCCI Vice President that Ferozepure Road Industrial Area has more than 450 industrial units and trading houses catering to the needs of over 100,000 people directly or indirectly but due to non-availability of fundamental facilities, the industrialists were facing multiple problems. He said that the law and order situation was also not encouraging.
The FRIA chief also sought the help of the LCCI for a firefighting station in the area to avert any untoward incident in the area.
The LCCI vice president said that the LCCI was quite conscious of the problems of the business community and was putting in its best efforts for their early solution. He said that the LCCI understands well that the acute energy shortage had hit the entire industrial sector and it had asked the government for a bailout package for the industries besides a cut in markup rate that was too high and has no parallel in the developed world.
The LCCI vice president informed the FRIA delegation that the LCCI has established a Help Desk to address the issue of property tax and invited them to avail the opportunity.
Meanwhile, LCCI President Ijaz A Mumtaz has said that through establishment a of state-of-the-art industrial estates, government could attract local and foreign investment while these could also make a vital contribution to the national exports.
He said that the existing industrial estates, despite facing various challenges, were making a sizeable contribution to the Pakistan’s economy. He said that establishment of more industrial estates, industrial zones and declaring the industrial areas as industrial estates, government could achieve economic targets substantially.
Mumtaz said that keeping in view the ongoing economic scenario, the government should encourage the development of export industries in maximum and put development of import substitute industries on the top priority.
