KARACHI: Chairman Businessmen Group (BMG) Zubair Motiwala and President Karachi Chamber of Commerce & Industry (KCCI) Shariq Vohra have appreciated the State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) for paying attention to KCCI’s legitimate demand and accordingly deciding to keep those authorized branches of banks operational on May 10th and 11th who are dealing in foreign exchange & trade activities.
“We are very grateful to the government and SBP for keeping the authorized branches operational on first two days of next week to facilitate trade & industry, particularly the exports during the extended holidays before Eid-ul-Fitr”, said Chairman BMG Zubair Motiwala.
While welcoming Sindh government’s move to keep all businesses operational on Friday and Saturday from 6am till 6pm, Chairman BMG reiterated KCCI’s demand to allow small traders and shopkeepers to keep their businesses operational throughout the remaining few days of Ramazan ul Mubarak while the business hours have to be redefined from 12am till 12pm instead of existing 6am to 6pm.
President KCCI Shariq Vohra said that SBP’s move would certainly give some breathing space to the exporters by enabling them to carry out important banking transactions and dispatch shipments either on 10th or 11th May, 2021. Although the Sindh government has issued holidays notification from May 10th to 15th but this needs to be reissued under Factories Act in which holidays should be categorically mentioned from May 12th to 15th which would help in dealing with confusion amongst many circles.
He also requested the Sindh government to allow shopkeepers to keep their businesses operational during the remaining days of Ramazan and urged the shopkeepers to ensure strict implementation of Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) at the commercial markets.
