October 17, 2003	Friday	Sha'aban 20, 1424

ISLAMABAD, Oct 16: The Vice President and Zonal Chairman of the Federation of Pakistan Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FPCCI), Sohail Altaf has said that in Pakistan the corporate sector was not only weak but neglected as well.

He was speaking at a panel discussion on “Present Status & Prospect of country’s Future Industrial Growth”. It was conducted by Export Advisory Cell (EAC) and FPCCI here on Thursday.

He asked the government to provide more facilities to the corporate sector so that it could function at its fullest potential and accelerate the overall growth rate.

He said that despite positive changes in economic indicators, growth in the industry was still sluggish.

“We are very good at making good policies but unfortunately we simply fail at the implementation stage. Pakistan is blessed with ideal geographical location with four wonderful seasons, splendid mountains and rivers but we are yet to take full advantage of these favourable aspects,” he added.

He said that inconsistent policies and tax harassment had created uncertainty among the business class, and freezing of FCAs was a major setback to the national economy which had aggravated the situation and shaken investor’s confidence.

Mr. Altaf said that 9/11 incident served to give a fillip to Pakistan’s economy as Pakistanis working abroad started remitting their incomes and savings to their motherland as they increasingly found it highly risky to keep them in foreign banks, which were being closely scrutinized to trace financial links of the terrorist organizations.

This, he said, had provided a significant boost to the country’s economy and “today our foreign reserves are more than $11 billion.”

“Investment and business activity has registered a sharp growth during last few months as people have started investing their money in the local market. Major portion of investment is being invested in property, stock exchanges and automobiles,” he said.

He urged the bureaucracy to change their mind-set and improve their coordination with the business community.

EAC chief, Zahid Aziz said that one of the reasons for our failure was that we did not recruit the right people for the right job and then expected miracles. “If we are to prosper, we must accord top priority to value-addition in the engineering sector like China is doping,” he said.

He maintained that “we have remarkable potential in SME’ sector but to exploit this we need to simplify our systems and remove the anomalies so that our skilled workers could put their expertise to profitable use with the assistance of the government.”