PESHAWAR: The business community has urged the federal government to ensure provision of soft loans through commercial banks for development of small-scale businesses and strengthening of industries in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.

The demand was made by Sarhad Chamber of Commerce and Industry president Fazal Moqeem Khan during a meeting with State Bank’s Peshawar Chief Manager Waqar Ali here on Friday.

Mr Moqeem said that commercial banks had declared Khyber Pakhtunkhwa as ‘red zone’, owing to which the business community was facing difficulties in excessing loans.

SCCI senior vice-president Abdul Jalil Jan, deputy chief manager, SBP Mohammad Haroon, assistant chief manager Imran Khan and others were also present on the occasion.

Mr Moqeem said that commercial banks had failed to fulfil their commitments made at different forums to extend loan facilities to the business community. He said whenever the traders approached the banks for loans, they were informed that KP had been put into ’red zone’.

Therefore, he urged the central bank to issue instructions to commercial banks to remove KP from ‘red zone’. He also stressed the need of improving the lending ratio of commercial banks against their rising deposits.

The meeting was informed that SBP would hold an awareness session for the business community on November 19 in SBP building and the next day at the SCCI.

The meeting agreed to jointly take measures for provision of loans to traders on easy terms and promotion of SMEs under joint ventures.

Mr Moqeem called for one-window facilitation services to the businesspeople to halt the ‘flight of capital’ and ‘brain drain’ from Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.

He also asked the government and SBP to play role in the economic development of KP.

The SCCI chief, while emphasising the uniform implementation of policies across the country, said traders, exporters and importers were faced with difficulties, which should be addressed on priority basis.

Mr Moqeem stressed the need for efficient utilisation of natural resources to change the destiny of KP.

Mr Waqar Ali of SBP congratulated the newly-elected cabinet of SCCI.

Earlier, the meeting decided to hold a joint meeting of SCCI, SBP and officials of relevant departments/authorities to hammer out a viable solution to the issues of the business community.

Published in Dawn, October 19th, 2024