FAISALABAD. Pakistan should realign its agriculture, industrial and export policies to face the emerging international challenges by enhancing it’s per acre yield, cutting down the cost of doing business and value addition in exportable surplus.
Faisalabad Chamber of Commerce and Industry (FCCI) President Chaudhary Muhammad Nawaz stated this while addressing the participants of 9th Senior Management Course of National Management College Lahore that visited FCCI here today.
Underlining the importance of bureaucracy, he said that good officers try to deliver and facilitate the general public in addition to safeguard the national interest. Quoting the example, he said that hundreds of tax cases were pending with the Regional Tax Office (RTO) for the last two years which are now being expeditiously disposed off. The approach of the existing officials is to generate revenue for the national exchequer in addition to facilitating the tax payers, he added. He said that it is a general practice that the noose is tightened around the neck of the existing tax payers instead of identifying new tax payers.
Responding to a question, he said that business community of Faisalabad is fully conscious of its Corporate Social Responsibility and they are managing many leading hospitals and educational institutions in the city.
Senior Vice President Syed Zia Alamdar Hussain introduced the FCCI and said that it is the third largest and important Chamber of the country with 5000 members within its fold. He said that earlier the entire industry was limited to the textile sector but now diversification has taken place. This city has now the largest chemical and rice mills of the country in this area. In banking sector, many leading banks are owned by the businessmen of this city. Similarly the Foundry Industry has grown up and was making a laudable contribution towards the national economy. He said that few years before, Faisalabad was considered as a biggest and unplanned village but now it has emerged as a modern, dynamic and planned city only because of the efficient bureaucracy of the city. He said that out of $13 billion national textile exports, the share of this city is around $6 million.
Commenting on the problems confronted by the business community of this city, he said that the Government has successfully resolved the energy crisis. The major industries are now getting round the clock electricity while the small industrial units are also getting electricity for 20 hours in a day. The prudent policies of SBP also helped in cutting down the financial cost interest and in Long Term Refinance rate, he added. He also appreciated the ongoing operation of Zarbe Azab and said that it has played a major role in improving the overall the law and order situation in the country. However, he said that despite of these positive indicators, decline in export is a matter of serious concern. He identified the cost of doing business as a major hurdle coupled with the non-payment of Rs.200 billion refund claims of the exporters. He told that Government has assured that from this July, zero-rating regime for exports will be introduced which will settle down the issue of refund on permanent basis.
Continuing, he said that Pakistan is pre-dominantly an agricultural country but our yield per acre is very low as compared to the other countries. Similarly, input cost as well as price of various commodities is very high. He said that we must re-visit our policies to give a quantum jump to our agriculture produce.
Responding to a question, he said that very recently Government has given subsidy to the agriculture sector but practically this subsidy was never transferred to the farming community. He said that Government should take positive steps for the benefit of the farming community which will help them to enhance their per-acre yield.
Jamil Ahmad, Vice president FCCI said that various countries have enhanced their cotton production by switching over to the high yielding and disease resistant varieties of BT Cotton. He said that in our case, the production of cotton crop has been reduced to 34.21 percent compared to last year. He further said that we fetch US$ 1.17 billion for every one million bales as compared to US$ 6 billion for same quantity by Bangladesh.
Tariq Najib Najmi, Directing Staff National Management College Lahore said that three years ago, the decision was taken to visit the FCCI during the study tour of Faisalabad division. It is now our third visit and we are proud of this decision which provided ample opportunities to the participants of the Senior Management Course to learn a lot about the trade and industry during their visit to this city. He said that the people of Faisalabad are educated and simple and dealing with them is easy as compared to the residents of other cities.
Earlier the participants of Senior Management Course introduced themselves and also asked a number of questions. Former president FCCI Mian Zahid Aslam, Engineer Rizwan Ashraf, Chaudhary Talat Mehmood, Abdul Qayyum Sheikh, Farooq Yousaf and others also attended this meeting.
Later Zahid Aslam presented FCCI memento to Tariq Najeeb Najmi Faculty member of the National College of Management Lahore. Tariq Najmi also gave away a shield of the National Management College to Chaudhary Muhammad Nawaz President FCCI.
