LAHORE: The Lahore Chamber of Commerce and Industry (LCCI) and the Lahore School of Economics (LSE) signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) on Monday for joint research and seminars on economic issues.

LCCI President Ijaz A Mumtaz and LSE Rector Dr Shahid Amjad Chaudhry singed the MoU.

Former Wapda chairman Tariq Hameed, former LCCI president Engineer Sohail Lashari, Akber Sheikh and Dr Azam Chaudhry also spoke.

The MoU offers capacity building programmes through training and empowerment by a mutual collaboration between businessmen and educational institutions.

The LCCI and the LSE will form a coordination committee and collaborate for the development of joint research activities and enhancement of capacity building.

Both organisations will collaborate and undertake projects to help the industry compete with challenges of 21st century besides holding workshops, conferences, symposia and seminars for mutual benefits.

Mr Mumtaz said the MoU was a significant step in bringing the institutions, trade and industry together. He said the economic challenges being faced by the country needed tailor-made and workable solutions and that was only possible through strong academia and industry linkage.

He said there was no dearth of resources in Pakistan but it was far behind in the economic race as we had failed to properly tap those resources.

He said the LSE would contribute to a great deal in closing leadership gap through training to potential businessmen in areas relating to economy and international affairs. He said the MoU between two think tanks would also help find new solutions of the issues being faced by the trade, industry and economy.

LSE Rector Dr Chaudhry said his institution would provide support to the chamber on economic issues and would also conduct subject-specific workshops and seminars to equip the businessmen with latest working techniques.

He said they would also provide support to the chamber for finalisation of budget proposals.

Published in Dawn, March 10th, 2015

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