PESHAWAR: Sarhad Chamber of Commerce and Industry (SCCI) lauded the government’s decision to frame a comprehensive roadmap to boost investment and trade in the country and stressed efforts would only produce tangible results by consultation with relevant stakeholders.
Fazal Moqeem Khan, President Abdul Jalil Jan, Senior Vice President and Shehryar Khan, Vice President SCCI along with the entire executive committee of the Chamber in a joint statement here on Wednesday highly admired the vision of incumbent coalition government and Prime Minister’s Shehbaz Sharif to improve investment climate to lead the country from sustainably economic growth, progress and development.
The senior office bearers emphasized that the roadmap and reforms agenda should be crafted while keeping in view the ground realities of the smaller federating units, especially Khyber Pakhtunkhwa wherein trade and commercial activities have adversely suffered by prolonged war against terrorism, must be given preferential treatment in the roadmap.
The SCCI noted the economic outlook in Pakistan is promising as reported by global index and institutions that had made possible due to prudent economic policies and reforms initiatives of the incumbent government.
However, it asserted the government’s certain policies and initiatives need to rectify and realign, with regard to the cross border trade as KP people and their business directly attached with Afghanistan and regional countries.
The chamber also expressed grave concern over widening trade deficit with the regional countries and called for corrective measures to be initiated to address the trade gap.
Pakistan can earn massive revenue by fully capturing the Afghanistan and Central Asian Republic market, because it is high time for the country to improve trade with regional states to improve exports and stabilize the national economy, the SCCI senior office bearers remarked.
They called for ease of doing business, ease of taxation measures and reduction in energy tariffs under the roadmap.
Senior office bearers stressed chamber and stakeholders from smaller federating units must be taken on board to make a viable roadmap and implementation of reforms agenda to improve investment and stabilize the country’ economy.
They said the SCCI is ready to extend all kinds of cooperation and present concrete and workable proposals for the government roadmap and reform agenda.
They urged the government to make any initiative for economic prosperity, investment and trade under the umbrella of the FPCCI, chambers and business community to lead the efforts and plan toward success and gain targets set for economic growth and progress in the country.
