ISLAMABAD: The National Assembly Standing Committee on Commerce, Monday, changing the agenda for meeting due to two-day 3rd Pak-US Business Opportunities Conference, took up agenda set for Tuesday’s meeting.
“Committee had to change its agenda at the eleventh hour due to engagements of required high officials of State Life Insurance Corporation Limited (SLIC), National Insurance Company Limited (NICL) and Pakistan Re-insurance Company Limited (PRICL)) as well as TCP and TDAP in the said conference” the Chairman Committee Siraj Muhammad Khan told this scribe here through telephonic interaction, adding that the officials of later organizations flew to Islamabad after end of meeting.
He said that the Chairman TCP apprised the Committee that the compliance has been made on the recommendations of the Committee like the composition of Board of Directors has been constituted for its three members from private sector and also the procedure for pre-qualification of the contractors for urea has been adopted on open bidding basis on the directions of PPRA, for which the PPRA rules are to be changed.
The Committee was also informed that the expected quantity of urea to arrive till April, 2015 is 374,897 MTs. The Committee also recommended that the cotton grower may be protected from the losses made due to the time difference in the different areas of country. The Chairman TCP, also informed the Committee that about 14-15 lac cotton bales are present in the stock with TCP.
The CEO TDAP, informed the Committee that the Expo Pakistan-2015 was arranged for four days in the end of February, 2015 at Karachi. During this Expo about 1.3 billon US$ orders have been received from local and international market.
The Committee recommended that the steps may be taken on the issue of separate business visa given to Pakistani business community for China and Hong Kong for first 15 days as it is done with other countries. The Committee took serious note on the import of sub-standard wheat from Ukraine and constituted a sub-committee to probe into this matter.
The meeting was attended by Tahira Aurangzeb, Shazia Marri, Mussarat Zeb, Dr. Fouzia Hameed, Mehreen Razaque Bhutto, Sanjay Perwani, Nazir Ahmed Bughio, Mian Muhammad Rasheed and Muhammad Pervaiz Malik MNAs, beside senior officers from Ministry of Commerce, Chairman TCP and CEO TDAP also.
In today’s meeting, the committee will take up the agenda items of Monday’s and review the yearly performance of three major state owned insurance companies.
Insurance sector is regulated under the Insurance Ordinance 2000. In last few years, it has transformed into a developing and fast growing market that is generally divided into three components: life insurance, general insurance and health insurance.
SLIC is headed by a Chairman and assisted by the Executive Directors appointed by Federal Government. Up to July 2000 the Corporation was run by Board of Directors constituted under Life Insurance (Nationalization) Order 1972. In July 2000, under Insurance Ordinance 2000, the Federal Government reconstituted the Board of Directors of State Life which runs the affair of this Corporation.
National Insurance Company Limited was incorporated in March 2000 as an unquoted public limited company under the Companies Ordinance 1984 through NIC (Reorganization) Ordinance 2000.
Similarly, Pakistan Reinsurance Company Limited (PRCL) is a public sector company under the administrative control of the Ministry of Commerce. The Company is headed by a Chairman with a nine member Board of Directors.
