IlluMyFi

President FPCCI AtifIkram Sheikh apprised that Dr. GoharEjaz, Federal Caretaker Minister for Commerce & Industries, has announced a new industrial zone of a whopping 10,000 acres for Karachi, which will be aligned with international standards during his maiden visit to FPPCI - the apex body of trade and industry of Pakistan. He added that the minister has also offered his full support in taking top economists on board as advisers of FPCCI to formulate its policy recommendations. AtifIkram Sheikh also maintained that FPCCI has decided to support reform initiatives of the commerce minister vis-à-vis export target of USD100 billion in 5 years; documentation of the economy and stabilizing rupee-dollar parity. He announced that FPCCI is going to announce its R&D structure in the next 10 days - as his vision is to turn FPCCI into top consultative body for the government. FPCCI Chief acknowledged that the approval of 9 cents / kWh tariff for the export-oriented industries under the auspices of Special Investment Facilitation Council (SIFC) is a landmark achievement of Dr. GoharEjaz. That is how the business community can play a productive role in policymaking if included in key policymaking forums that affect the economy of Pakistan, he added. S. M. Tanveer, Provincial Caretaker Minister of Commerce for Punjab, stressed that FPCCI should establish a credible, functioning and productive research & development structure; so that, the federal & provincial governments incorporate its recommendations in budgetary, industrial, trade, agricultural, monetary, taxation, SME and infrastructure development policies. Dr. GoharEjaz shared his deep concerns over the state of Pakistan's economy; specifically, trade deficit; rupee depreciation; low number of active tax filers; anomalies in Afghan Transit trade; reliance on the external sources of financing and dearth of the active participation of the business community in the policymaking. Taking China as a role model, Dr. GoharEjaz, highlighted that China has foreign exchange reserves in the upwards of $3 trillion- which has shown a growth of 600 times over the course of last 30 years; while Pakistan has hardly managed to double its FER to $9 billion from $4.5 billion during the tenure of current caretaker government. The minister also stated that if his vision of a 10,000-acre new industrial zone in Karachi is materialized and exports are taken to $100 billion in the next 5 years, it will create 3 million new jobs in Karachi alone. At the same time, the business community can simply triple its earnings; if they play their due role in the accomplishment of targets set by the economic team of government. It is a win-win, he added.

Sentiment

Bearish/Bullish

13.01.24 09:43

by pakobserver.net

Your common courtyard..! - Pakistan Observer

PARK your taxi to the side of the road! I told the taxi driver gently as he got out of his cab to go to the local temple. "Are you the police?" he asked me. "No!" I said. "Then mind your own business!" I knew where he lived and that evening I went over to his place. He opened the door, stared at me, then said, "You have come to harass me again?" "No," I said, "I have come to visit you! May I come in?" "Okay," he said uncertainly and ushered me into his home, a small tenement measuring just around two hundred square feet. There was a TV in one corner and a huge double bed at the other where all his family were perched watching the evening program. "You keep your home very neat!" I said pleasantly. "We have to," he said, "Otherwise we will be falling over everything which is out of place, so I have trained the children that if they take out anything they put it back where it belongs!" "Excellent!" I said, then looked at the children, "You have a good father who has taught you well," then saw a look of puzzlement on the taxi driver's face, "You are saying something," he said. "I have not said anything," I told him as his face broke into a big grin. "What are you smiling at?" I asked. "I understand," he said, "Why you have come here!" "You do?" I asked. "You are telling me that if I am so neat in my house I should also be neat outside isn't it?" "Is that the message you are getting?" I asked innocently. "But this morning you told me to mind my own business if I was not the police. There is a Chinese saying," I continued, "that a common courtyard is swept by none, and yet I wonder why? Why shouldn't we who are so clean and neat in our own homes not treat the outside roads and open places as an extension of our homes? Why?" The taxi driver pondered over my statement, then said, "Maybe what you've just asked has the answer, that if we thought of the whole country as our own home, we would treat it as such, I think that is what I am going to teach my children from now on!" I walked my dog the next day and found the taxi driver rushing to the temple, he grinned as he reached the entrance and pointed to his cab, it was parked alongside the curb, and the traffic around flowed smoothly even as he was inside worshipping. The common courtyard was no more common, he had made it his own, what about you?