LAHORE: South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation Chamber of Commerce and Industry (SAARC-CCI) President Iftikhar Ali Malik said on Tuesday that political stability was a prerequisite for sustainable economy promising people’s prosperity and speedy development of a country.
He was talking to top businessmen and industrialists from Karachi led by United Business Group (UBG) President Zubair Tufail through a webinar here at his office.
Malik said that Pakistan could not afford any political turmoil and instability at this crucial time when Covid-19 affecting the businesses and the overall economy.
“We need a stable democratic system which is a prerequisite for sustained economic growth to cope with the multiple challenges being faced by Pakistan. The politics of confrontation and agitation had never been a solution,” he observed.
He said, “Time has changed as now the influential nations are paying more attention to financial warfare to continue their dominance. These countries are successfully using their weapons of economic destruction to weaken economics of poor nations to achieve their unholy designs, while Pakistan’s economy is not strong enough to withstand economic terrorism”.
Iftikhar Ali Malik, who is also the Chairman of UBG, was of the view that it was indeed important to increase exports for which effective measures needed to reduce industrial input cost and ease of doing business so that Pakistani products remained competitive in the world markets.
He said that trade facilitation was the key to promote industries and ‘we need to remove all the obstacles and create the culture of trade facilitation.’
SAARC-CCI President stressed the need for consistency in the economic policies and a clear road map to move forward, adding that all sectors including the industrial sector should play their key role in strengthening the economy, while the government should introduce reforms and control the smuggling of raw materials and finished goods.
Iftikhar Ali Malik urged the government to lay greater focus on market research to find out new foreign destinations for the Pakistani products which were best in the world as far as quality and price was concerned. He said that Pakistani missions abroad should be duty bound to introduce Pakistani products to the foreign buyers and also ensure dissemination of trade related information so that Pakistan entrepreneurs could avail trade opportunities to the maximum.
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