Parliament, Judiciary, Govt and business community should work jointly to resolve economic issues, President

Islamabad :(Nasir abbas,Adnan Hameed) While talking to the Presidents of Chambers of Commerce and Industry from across the country, President Dr Arif Alvi has said that the parliament, judiciary, government and business community needed to work in tandem to identify the issues faced by the nation and resolve them with commitment and efficiency to bring about political, economic and financial stability in the country. He said that all those voices who were predicting the derailment of the political and democratic process needed to be discouraged wholeheartedly. He said that democracy in Pakistan should be sustained and strengthened with each passing day. The President expressed these views while talking to the Presidents and representatives of 54 chambers of commerce and industry from across the country, including the representatives of women’s chambers of commerce, small and medium chambers of commerce, APTMA, P@SHA, Pakistan Poultry Association, and the Stock Exchange. Representatives of Karachi, Lahore, Faisalabad, Sarhad and Rawalpindi chambers of commerce, and the pharmaceutical sector were also present during the meeting. Speaking on the occasion, the President said that Pakistan was facing an economic situation which necessitated the holding of general elections in agreement and consensus of all the political stakeholders to elect a fully representative government empowered and mandated to take critical and difficult decisions and provide solutions to the problems and issues faced by the nation on the political, economic and financial fronts. The President said that signing the agreement with the IMF was an important decision which was likely to help the country resolve its financial and economic difficulties, and added that a representative government mandated by the people could sell the difficult decisions to the people of Pakistan. The President termed political stability in the country as the basic and most vital element for creating financial and economic stability and stressed the need for all political stakeholders to promptly start negotiations and deliberations on setting out an agreed-upon date for holding general elections. While replying to a question, the President appreciated the establishment for its intent to avoid involvement in political affairs and stressed upon the political forces to jointly grab this opportunity and resort to democratic means of resolving the issues faced by the nation and lead it toward progress and prosperity. The President said that most of the country’s import bill comprised of petroleum products used for energy production and transportation, adding that this cost could be substantially reduced by adopting an all-encompassing energy, water, and gas conservation strategy, which was implementable and could deliver results with the commitment and support of the business community. He also emphasized the shifting of business and industrial processes to green energy, like solar and wind, to not only reduce the import bill but also to protect the environment. The President said that there was no dearth of ideas in Pakistan but there seemed to be a communication gap between decision-making authorities, target populations, and agencies responsible for their implementation. He stated that Pakistan took the right decisions at the right time to contain and counter the COVID-19 pandemic and through the coordinated efforts of all the stakeholders, we were able to defeat the pandemic in an effective manner as compared to regional as well as other countries of the world. He added that by adopting a similar approach, we could identify the issues confronted by the nation on the political, economic and financial fronts, find out consensus-based and fully sold-out solutions, and implement them with full commitment in an efficient and proactive manner, which would help in coming out of our present economic problems. The President said that the women’s chambers of commerce should provide leadership to women entrepreneurs and start-ups and help them in securing loans from the banks to start and set up their own businesses. He said that although the banks had promised 100% disbursement of loans to all the women applying for loans, unfortunately only 5% of the loans set out had been availed. He asked the women’s chambers of commerce to lead the way and facilitate women in securing loans to promote their businesses. He also emphasised the need to utilize the skill training programs launched by Meta to help women gain marketable skills and sell their products and services online. He said that Pakistan needed to promote the cottage industry in the country, especially at the grassroots level, adding that unlike the prevailing thinking, the scope of the cottage industry had expanded to include gemstone and diamond processing, chip design, and other sophisticated fields. The President also sought the focus of the business community in five areas of import