LAHORE: West Pakistan Governor, Lt-Gen Atiqur Rahman today [May 12] called for minimising dependence on foreign aid and suggested two steps to achieve the objective.

During the course of the speech at the annual dinner of the Lahore Chamber of Commerce and Industry at a local hotel the Governor urged for consolidating and fully utilising the existing production potential and at the same time making all efforts to step up exports. The second step, he further said, was to concentrate on development of such industries for which the country did not need imported raw material.

Gen Atiq expressed the view that industries based on agricultural products, locally available industrial by-products and wastes, should be the obvious choice of the Pakistani entrepreneurs today. He hoped that the Lahore Chamber of Commerce and Industry would assist and advise the entrepreneurs in every possible way.

He said these two steps were necessary in view of the limitation of the country’s resources for development and its dependence on help from friendly countries to finance its foreign exchange requirements. Governor Atiq opined that the time for the establishment of consumer goods industries, based on imported raw material, was over.

Published in Dawn, May 13th, 2020