Business community’s contribution in socio-economic development is praiseworthy: Governor Punjab

WNAM REPORT: The Islamabad Chamber of Commerce and Industry (ICCI) organized a business role model award ceremony to give awards to business leaders for achieving great success in their respective business fields. Governor Punjab Muhammad Baligh ur Rehman was the chief guest.
Speaking on the occasion, Muhammad Baligh ur Rehman, Governor Punjab said that the business community is making a great contribution to the socio-economic development of the country and taking an active part in philanthropic activities, which is laudable. He said that the Special Investment Facilitation Council has brought all stakeholders on the same page and hoped that the incoming government would turn around Pakistan’s economy towards better growth and development. He said that Pakistan needs to highlight positivity and discourage negativity to move forward. He highlighted the achievements of Edhi and Akhuwat as the outcomes of positive efforts. He acknowledged the need to bring out-of-school children to schools to educate them. He threw light on the achievements of the Punjab Skills Development Fund from 2013 to 2018 which were made case studies by Harward and the London School of Economics. He said that the business community needs ease of doing business to improve the economy. He assured that he would support the representation of the business community in the syndicates of universities to promote academia-industry linkages to address issues of industry and improve economic growth.
Speaking on the occasion, Ahsan Zafar Bakhtawari, President, Islamabad Chamber of Commerce & Industry thanked the Governor Punjab for his support of the new industrial estate project of ICCI. He said that the land for the said project has been identified in the district Chakwal and stressed that the work on this important project should be expedited to complete it to promote industrialization and exports. He said that all parties should accept the election results to move forward as Pakistan needs political stability to achieve economic stability. He said that Pakistan needs foreign investment, industrialization, and an increase in exports to revive the economy for which stability is the key requirement. He said that ICCI wants an IT Park in the Capital as this region has a lot of educated IT talent and hoped that Governor Punjab would cooperate with this project. He said that the government has further increased the gas tariffs while the industry needs a competitive energy tariff to compete effectively for exports in the international market.
Khalid Iqbal Malik, Group Leader ICCI emphasized for the enrolment of 26 million out-of-school children in the schools as no nation can develop without education. He said that by providing good education to youth, it can be transformed into a great dividend for the country. He stressed that all loss-making commercial entities should be privatized to save about Rs.1000 billion in annual losses to bail out them.
Zafar Bakhtawari, Former President ICCI and Secretary General UBG Pakistan urged that the business leaders should be promoted as role models for youth that would put Pakistan on the path of sustainable economic growth. He said that when youth would idealize businessmen as role models, it would foster entrepreneurship in Pakistan and strengthen the economy.
Those who received awards included Qazi Muhammad Akbar, Raja Muhamad Anwar, Chaudhry Javed Iqbal, Tariq Khan Jadoon, Nasir Hussain Raki, Ashfaq Ahmed, Mohsin Bilal Khan, Dr. Muhammad Usman, Faizan Shahzad, Ashar Hafeez, Irfan Aman, Malik Nadeem Akhtar, Faisal Muzamil, Kashif Farid, Muhammad Sohail Chaudhry, Syed Sadat Hussain Shah, Imran Rasheed, Muhammad Adnan Mukhtar, Ms.Amna Munawar Awan, Hatim Tabani, Muhammad Usman Hameedm, Ms. Afraz Sial, Ms. Fatima Hassan, Ovais Khokhar, Sheikh Tayyab Saeed, Muhammad Waqas Janjua, Tahir Mehmood Abbasi, Tehmas Butt, Rehan Anwar, Shahbaz Masih, Engr. Usman Basra, Hamza Ajmal Baloch, Haris Shabbir, Sheikh Muhammad Afaq, Junaid Khurshid, Zeeshan Mehmood, Arsalan Javaid, Syed Bilal Pirzada, Khurram Shahzad, Babar Aftab Qazi and Ch Mohammad Waleed Umer