PESHAWAR
President, Sarhad Chamber of Commerce and Industry, Muhammad Ishaq said the successive governments had never pay serious attention toward issues of the terrorism-hit business community of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. Muhammad Ishaq while responding to various queries of editors, columnists, writers and senior journalists during a lunch hosted in their honour here at the chamber’s house on Thursday said business, industrial and commercial activities are halting owing to least attention of government and authorities concerned.
The deteriorating law and order situation gave birth to new issues to the business community in the province, the SCCI noted. He questioned: “How would businesses and industries flourish when issues of businessmen were not resolved on priority grounds”? He sought serious steps to make the dream of the promotion of industrialization come true in real sense in K-P.
The SCCI’s senior vice president Shahid Hussain, vice president Ejaz Khan Afridi, Chief Minister KP Focal Person on Ease of Doing Business and Investment, Ghazanfar Bilour, former senior vice president Inayat Khan, along with members of the SCCI’s executive committee, Haji Ghulam Hussain, Munawar Khurshid, Lala Badshah, Kashif Amin, Hafaf Ali Khan, Javed Ahmad Khan, Qurtul Ain and others were present during the luncheon.
Muhammad Ishaq in reply of a question said that the region has suffered from terrorism and extremism for the last four decades and its negatives impacts had directly come to K-P.
Expressing grave concern over worsening security situations, the SCCI chief said more than 300 industrial units had so far closed down while new wave of terrorism has again pushed investors and business community toward a difficult situation.
K-P trade and businesses are mostly attached with Afghanistan and Central Asian Republic, but bilateral trade volume between Pakistan and Afghanistan has dropped exponentially under the prevailing scenario, Mr Ishaq said.
He stressed the need to remove obstacles in the way of bilateral trade between Pakistan and Afghanistan and with regional countries that would help to boost the local economy and create job opportunities and business expansion.
The SCCI chief called for giving serious attention toward issues of the war-affected business community of the K-P. He furthermore asked the government to adopt business-friendly policies with consultations of relevant stakeholders in order to stabilize and boost up the national economy.
Ghazanfar Bilour responded on the occasion to a question of a senior journalist who said the direction of federal governments departments, particularly SNGPL and FBR should be corrected. He severely criticized the federal government for elevating miseries of the business community of K-P.
CM focal person on EODB and investment said the proposal of KP business community didn’t take it seriously because of which the issues of traders are increasing with each passing day. He asked for equal level playing field and provision of special incentives, along with serious steps to resolve business community problems.
Shahid Hussain while replying to different queries said Pak-Afghan bilateral trade volume had decreased apparently, which currently stood at 400million dollars against 2.5billion dollars some years back. He added the regime change in Afghanistan had brought negative impacts on the business community of both neighbouring countries.
However, he said the business community of the both countries had played an important role in bringing improvement in bilateral trade relations between the two countries. He expressed the hope that the economic situation would be improved if the issues connecting with banks could be resolved at earliest.
Earlier, the SCCI president Muhammad Ishaq thanked the senior journalists, columnists and writers for coming to the chamber’s house and urged them to highlight issues of business community before relevant government departments.
