March 31, 2006	Friday	Rabi-ul-Awwal 1, 1427

KARACHI, March 30: Senate Chairman Mohammedmian Soomro has underlined the need for enhanced and continuous interaction between the government and the business community, as this will help in making government’s policies more practical and targeted.

Speaking to members of the Site Association of Industry (SAI), he assured that association’s suggestions would get due weight in policy and decision making by the government, says a SAI press release.

The Senate chairman said that he knew that industrialists were facing many bottlenecks and obstacles in their way but they were going ahead and enabled the government to meet its revenue as well as export targets.

Mr Soomro supported the association’s suggestion that business representatives should participate in meetings of various standing committees of the parliament, which directly or indirectly influenced trade and investment of the country.

He said manufacturing and services sectors required more focus and attention and added that it was up to the private sector to exploit the huge potential. He urged the private sector to especially manufacture heavy equipment and agriculture machinery to meet local demand along with exports to developing countries.

The Senate chairman said the process of globalization was picking up speed and Pakistan being a signatory to the WTO agreement should be poised to compete in the global village. He said much was to be done to improve infrastructure and reduce the cost of doing business in the country supplemented by more social reforms. “Investors are very sensitive about size of market, infrastructure standard, security situation, reserves and access to justice. The government is seriously looking at all these sectors for maximum economic activity in the country,” he added.

SITE Association Chairman Ameen Bandukda while commenting on non-conducive and non-consistent policies of the government said that industrial growth weakened during the first quarter of the year, registering a growth of only 6.1 per cent as compared to 19 per cent growth in the corresponding quarter last year. “There has been a slowdown in large scale manufacturing, which in spite of all reforms, is only 16 per cent of GDP. Other countries in the region are at a much higher level,” he added.