ISLAMABAD
Pakistan Industrial and Traders Associations Front (PIAF) Chairman Fahimur Rehman Saigol, along with PIAF EC members Mudassar Masood, Malik Khalid, Chaudhary Wajid, Zeeshan Sohail, Sheikh Sajjad, Azhar Khan, Secretary PIAF Abdul Saboor and other market representatives visited several city’s several markets and major commercial hubs, including Baden Road, Cooper Road and adjacent markets and met officials of organizations there.
During this visit, Fahimur Rahman also inaugurated Light Makers, a shop owned by Nadim Saeed and Mian Shehbaz on Biden Road and prayed for the development of their business.
During the door-to-door meeting with businessmen, Chairman PIAF said that the manifesto of PIAF is to solve the problems of the business community on a priority basis. The business community is facing problems like unannounced load shedding, parking, overbilling, departmental proceedings and expensive electricity and gas in the markets.
The government should solve the above problems on a priority basis in consultation with the traders. Piaf’s mission is to create a stable economy and prosperous business community.
He said that business community was facing tough challenges because of limited business. In this context, he sought attention of the government for formulation of regional, provincial and central level task force, and formulation of sector wise regional policies which would help the government address the problems confronted by exporters.
He asked the government to appreciate the role of trade, industry and exporters, providing mass employment to the jobless population of the country.
He suggested that One Window Operation should be introduced for the replacing the lengthy procedures that involve interaction of manufacturers with various agencies. The government agencies were harassing the trade and industry every day and Social Security, EOBI and other taxes should be merged and deducted at the source.
He called for promoting industrialization and enhancing exports through lowering cost of production, paying early refunds to solve liquidity crunch and relaxing import policy for industrial raw material.
He also sought government’s attention for formulating aggressive marketing plan and hurdle-free policies as well as urgent decisions in favour of trade and industry while taking on board major stakeholders. He called for concerted efforts for exploring new markets both traditional and non-traditional in order to introduce home made products. He urged the government to announce favorable policies and allow duty-free import of raw material and accessories. This move will attract investors and help in setting up new industries in the country which will create wide opportunities for employment.
We direly need a stimulus economic plan coupled with relief package by the government to maximize production. He also emphasized the need for seeking technical knowhow from China and other countries for the sake of innovation, and improvement of products.
