HYDERABAD: Women entrepreneurs of Hyderabad on Sunday announced establishment of their own Chamber of Commerce and Industry.

Speaking at a press conference at local press club, they said that Shahida Ghulam Rasool was elected as president, Sadaf Raza as senior vice president and adviser finance and Rozina Memon as vice president of the new chamber.

Shahida Rasool said that Hyderabad’s glass bangles and handicrafts were famous in the entire world. The purpose of establishing the women chamber was to unite women entrepreneurs of Hyderabad and create new business opportunities for them, she added.

She pointed out that a number of exhibitions and seminars were organised over the last two years by women entrepreneurs and then about 200 women decided to establish this chamber. “An application has been sent to the director general of Trade Organisations (DGTO), Islamabad, to seek licence for the new chamber,” she said, and expressed the hope that it would be issued soon.

Ms Rasool said that a website of the chamber had already been designed. This chamber would also provide opportunities to all those women who had the potential of entrepreneurship, she said.

Businesswomen eager to demonstrate and prove their skills in designing and selling their products in the local and international markets would greatly benefit from the chamber’s support, she said.

She said the chamber would encourage women to come forward and participate in business activities confidently.

Small traders’ chamber slams hike in fuel prices

Hyderabad Chamber of Small Traders and Small Industry president Mohammad Altaf Memon has said that the federal government had given effect to a huge rise in fuel prices after bowing down before International Monetary Fund (IMF).

In statement issued here on Sunday, he said that such a big and sudden hike in fuel prices had caused chaos across the country. The prices of edibles would go beyond the reach of common man, he warned, and noted that traders and industrialists would bear an increased cost of their products.

He said that Prime Minister Shehbaz Zhari had announced a Rs28bn general subsidy but it would remain just a promise because when government did not have money for running the country’s economy, how would it bear the cost of subsidy.

He said that when oil price in the international market was $110 per barrel in 2014, no such chaos was witnessed in the counrry in 2014 because Pakistani rupee was strong. He urged the prime minister to make rupee strong by controlling dollar’s rate.

Published in Dawn, May 30th, 2022