PESHAWAR: The participants of a consultative meeting here on Wednesday decided to launch investment facilitation centre at Sarhad Chamber of Commerce and Industry for sustainable economic growth and boosting up investment in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.

The consultative session was held at SCCI wherein representatives of about 30 stakeholders including various departments of federal, provincial governments, UNDP, Smeda shared their views and appreciated the idea of setting up of the facilitation centre.

SCCI president Sherbaz Bilour presided over the session while Smeda provincial chief Rashid Aman acted as moderator on the occasion. Besides SCCI senior vice president Manzoor Elahi, WSSP chief Dr Hassan Nasir and senior officials of more than 32 federal and provincial relevant departments attended the event.

The speakers said that ‘initiative for digital transformation in KP investment facilitation (IFC) and web portal’ was a joint venture of SCCI and Small and Medium Enterprises Development Authority (Smeda) funded by USAID.

Mr Bilour said that the IFC/web portal was a first step towards promotion of sustainable business environment in the province. He said that the project would be implemented with cooperation of federal and provincial governments and other stakeholders to make it a success.

He said that the project would attract investment and issues of business community would be resolved in an effective manner.

“Khyber Pakhtunkhwa has little or no indication despite having immense potential, resources and locational advantage of proximity to Afghanistan and Central Asian Republics (CARs),” he said.

The chamber chief said that SCCI had signed a memorandum of understanding with Uzbekistan and Surkhandarya chambers of commerce and industry. SCCI will sign MoUs with all the Central Asian republics to shift their transit and bilateral trade to Pakistani ports of Gwadar, Karachi and Port Qasim from Bandar Abbas of Iran.

Published in Dawn, August 5th, 2021