ISLAMABAD, March 11: The inter-Ministerial Committee on Deregulation, after extensive deliberations, on Monday identified eight areas that are creating hurdles to local and foreign investment.

Chairing the first meeting of the committee, Finance Minister Shaukat Aziz said that the president wanted smooth inflow of local and foreign investment.

The irritants included labour laws, provincial irritants, irritants emerging due to new district governments, investment and corporate law related problems, health and pharmaceutical problems, irritants emerging from CBR procedures, problems associated with Utilities, irritants related to transactions involving land titles, both urban and rural.

The law minister, finance minister Sindh, finance minister NWFP, minister for privatization, commerce minister, secretary general, Finance, minister for law and finance minister Punjab, respectively would head sub-committees on these issues and formulate their recommendations to be taken up in the next meeting of the committee that will be held before end- March.

He said President General Pervez Musharraf has time and again expressed concern over the continued presence of irritants in business and industry because they were stifling the process of investment in the country.

The Committee has been constituted by the president for formulating recommendations on war-footing to dismantle a host of regulations that continue to irritate and inhibit efficient decision-making by the private sector and add to the cost of doing business and thereby rendering industry uncompetitive.

The committee comprises federal ministers of commerce and industries, privatization, labour and law and provincial finance ministers.

He said his own experience after interaction with business leaders suggested that despite numerous initiatives aimed at simplifying regulatory regimes, the overall state of regulation remained cumbersome and complicated. “There appears to be a tendency in the government to keep reintroducing regulations under different guises that neutralise the simplification efforts,” he said in a statement issued at the end of the meeting.

In yet another important feedback, he pointed out, it has been reported that even though at the provincial level the number of taxes and levies were reduced but the departments that dealt with them remained in the field with the result that the harassment felt by the industry due to mere presence of functionaries of these departments continued to be experienced.

The finance minister, therefore, was of the view that even though considerable work at liberalizing the economy has been done particularly during the tenure of the present government, yet the regulatory regime poses challenges that may significantly dilute the benefits that should accrue to the economy because of liberalization.

The meeting deliberated at length the issues that required immediate attention and where instant measurers can radically alter the regulatory environment for business and industry.

It was further stated that some of the provinces had taken a number of initiatives towards deregulation but were not uniformly adopted by all. As a matter of course, such measures be adopted by all provinces and later on they should coordinate additional measures to be initiated in this regard.

The corporate laws and procedures relating to investment were viewed as discouraging for private sector. A number of areas could be simplified and given easier treatment to enable private sector to comply with them. It was also noted that some of these laws allowed fairly intrusive questioning by the regulators in the normal course of their operations that clearly irritated business without adding much to the objectives intended to be achieved for much laws.

The finance minister underlined the need for early conclusion of the initial work of the deregulation committee.