LCCI’s ‘progressive group’ has thanked businesspeople, others for successful strike

LAHORE: The progressive group comprising the members of the Lahore Chamber of Commerce and Industry has congratulated all the business community, political parties especially Jamaat-e-Islami and the people for the successful strike against the rising electricity prices on Saturday.

It said that the rulers should consider this strike as warning and take immediate steps to provide relief to the people. The progressive group added that the protest will not end here but will continue until the people get relief.

For this, the rulers should reduce their expenditure, promote austerity and create favorable environment for industries and business. The running of industries and businesses will not only provide employment opportunities for the people, but also collect revenue for the government, which will solve the country’s economic problems.

The central leader of the Progressive Group and members of the executive committee of the Lahore Chamber, Muhammad Ijaz Tanveer, Abdul Wadud Alvi and Mohsin Bashir, added in a statement that their group had already warned the current and past rulers many a time in this regard.

“We tried to convince the rulers that instead of relying on loans, they should take measures to increase exports, reduce the cost of business and industries and provide relief to the people so that the country can be brought out of the economic crisis,” they added.

They said that for this it should be made easy to set up industry in the country, exporters should be declared as national heroes so that they can work for further improvement wholeheartedly, supply of export raw materials should be made easy, loans to exporters from banks on easy installments.

To be provided, commercial attachés in embassies around the world should be hired on merit rather than political grounds and promoted on the basis of their performance.

To improve the power situation, Ijaz Tanveer and others said that the country needs to work on renewable energy on an urgent basis. IPP should revise previous agreements and power transmission system should be run on Private Public Partnership basis.

Copyright Business Recorder, 2023