LAHORE: The Lahore Chamber of Commerce and Industry (LCCI) Tuesday expressed grave concern over deteriorating law and order situation and called for stringent measures to control the situation that is getting out of hand with every passing day.

The LCCI President Farooq Iftikhar, senior Vice President Irfan Iqbal Sheikh and Vice President Mian Abuzar Shad in their joint statement said that an alarming increase in daylight robberies and dacoities is not only hitting businesses hard but also causing flight of capital.

The LCCI office-bearers said that the Lahore Chamber is under tremendous pressure over law and order situation and wants of the government to announce formation of Businessmen-Police liaison committees at district level. They said that provision of security to the citizens is government’s responsibility but unfortunately it has miserably failed to fulfil its responsibility.

Business-friendly atmosphere is a pre-requisite to investment and industrialisation. Therefore, the government would have to listen to the business community point of view for bringing peace back to this land of opportunities.

The countries that were far behind us a few decades ago are now progressing leaps and bound while the economic situation in Pakistan is not satisfactory and this is only because of bad law and order situation. In 60s the collective exports of a number of Far Eastern countries were much smaller than Pakistan and today each country has bigger export than Pakistan.