LAHORE, July 20: Central Board of Revenue chairman Abdullah Yousuf has advised the business community to adopt new business methods and technologies to face the challenges of the time.

He was speaking at the concluding session of a seminar on the future of dry ports in Pakistan arranged by a local business magazine in collaboration with the government of Pakistan, World Bank, Pakistan Automated Customs Clearance System (PACCS) at a hotel here on Thursday.

He said if the business community remained stuck to their old practices they would lag behind their competitors. He said the government on its part was prepared to extend all possible help to businessmen to meet the new challenges. He said that new technologies and electronics would increase their efficiency and productivity, besides ensuring transparency in their business.

He said the trade and commerce policies of tariff cuts, protection of industries, quota system, bonus vouchers scheme etc, followed by previous governments had rather resulted in inefficiency in commercial and industrial sector because of the easy methods of earning. Since the business community gave up hard work it had become sluggish. He said now as the world was fast changing with the advent of new methods and technologies the traders of Pakistan were exposed to the world. It was a big challenge for them. “Unless you change you cannot compete with the world. You cannot sustain and survive,” he warned.

He said the days of keeping double entries, maintaining separate registers and money laundering had gone. “Now you cannot carry any sort of money in your brief case and deposit wherever you like.” This was the age of accountability, he said.

Referring to the future of dry ports, he said it should be the responsibility of the private and not public sector to improve dry ports. However, he said, the government could provide facilities for proper functioning of dry ports. At present, there were five dry ports in public sector and eight in the private. He suggested there was no need for dry ports and said that every factory should also perform the function of dry port for the goods it produced.

The CBR chief said the government was devising a new system of goods’ clearance for exports to America before shipment due to the US security requirements. The system envisaged checking up the goods electronically without the presence of the US staff in Pakistan. He said that the experiment would be the first of its kind in the world. If succeeded, it could be followed for European and other countries also.

He said the government was also developing a national trade corridor by improving the infrastructure for the traders, which would help boost trade opportunities.