ISLAMABAD (January 23 2010): National Assembly's Standing Committee on Commerce underlined the need of establishing a regulatory authority for supervision of the matters of trade organisations in accordance with the Trade Organisation Ordinance (TOO), 2007. All the stakeholders ie traders, government officials and parliamentarians, in the committee agreed on constitution of an Independent Arbitration Tribunal to look into the problems of fake companies and trade organisations.

The committee, which met here with MNA Khurram Dastagir Khan in the chair, suggested that the recommendations of former Justice Saleem Akhtar's Committee should be considered for making a truly business friendly Law. It is worth mentioning here that Justice Saleem Akhtar Committee was constituted in 2006 to examine and revise TOO, 1961.

The committee presented a draft law to the Ministry of Commerce in December 2006, which was later on promulgated as Trade Organisations Ordinance on December 14, 2007 with some changes. The committee recommended that under the law physical inspections of the trade bodies should be made mandatory for the Director General Trade Organisation before issuing or renewing the licenses of trade organisations/companies.

Copyright Business Recorder, 2010