ISLAMABAD, May 10: A delegation of the Federation of Pakistan Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FPCCI) will meet Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz next week to discuss minimising the administrative and judicial powers of the director general under the new trade ordinance 2006.

Addressing a press conference here on Thursday FPCCI President Tanvir Ahmad Sheikh said that out of the 13 amendments proposed in the trade ordinance to make it more business friendly, the commerce ministry had agreed to accept 11.

“We are going to discuss the remaining two amendments with the prime minister relating to the powers of the director general and tenure of executive committees of the trade organisations,” he added.

The proposals to which the commerce ministry has shown willingness to be considered include licence fees for chambers or associations to be scaled down to Rs30,000 (Rs20,000 for women chambers); perpetual nature of the license requiring no renewal and monitoring by the SECP to ensure corporate compliance.

It has been proposed that election of presidents of chambers or associations should be through executive/managing committees and not by the general body of trade organisations.

Further, there should be no reserve seats in the managing committee of FPCCI for chambers/associations and all trade bodies should come through the process of election. It has also been suggested that the amount of penalty should to be Rs10,000.

The FPCCI president said that the other proposals include the tenure of the FPCCI president and managing committee should be for two years; definition of district to be added in the ordinance as well as in rules; and extension in time to file applications for registration up to June 30, 2007.

The FPCCI proposed that there should be no condition about the minimum membership of a trade body. If at all it is required, it should not be more than 100, initially for chambers and associations depending on the nature of industry/trade.

Every chamber must have the right to nominate a candidate for the post of president through normal roaster, including Fata/Pata.