KARACHI, Aug 25: The business community has extended full support to the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) co-chairman Asif Ali Zardari as a candidate for the office of the president.

In a hurriedly-called press conference the acting president FPCCI Azhar Saeed Butt said that the business community considered Mr Zardari as a symbol of unity for the federating units and, therefore, would support him in presidential election.

He said that the elected democratic forces took the reign of the government at a time when the country was faced with internal and external threats and there was a greater need for forging unity and tolerance amongst all political parties.

The business leaders, who flanked the acting president were Zubair Tufail, Dr Ikhtiar Baig, Farooq Dadabhoi, Fawad Ijaz Khan and Manzar Alam.

Mr Butt said that even the Meesaq-e-Jamhuriat signed by Benazir Bhutto with Nawaz Sharif was aimed to support democratic forces in the country.

They requested Nawaz Sharif to join hand with Zardari in strengthening democracy in the country because after a long time an elected and representative government had been installed in Islamabad.

The acting president said that when Pervez Musharraf resigned as president the capital markets of the country recovered and so the rupee but now due to the bickering amongst the political parties the confidence of investors had once again shaken and the rupee started sliding afresh.

Dr Ikhtiar Baig said that the Peoples Business Forum had welcomed the FPCCI’s support to Asif Zardari in his race for president’s office and assured them that the business community will always like to see political parties united for the larger interest of the country.

He said that the country would be receiving around $2.5 to $3 billion payment from a Chinese company towards Qaudirpur gas fields and like Saudi oil facility Kuwait and Qatar would also be extending similar concession to Pakistan.

However, business leaders expressed their concern over the on-going goods transporters’ strike and said that it had crippled the trade and industry and many units had closed down due to shortage of raw materials.

They requested the government to immediately enter into negotiations with the transporters and accept their genuine demands. The strike has resulted in loss of billions of rupees in trade as no goods have moved out or entered the ports during the last eight days, they added.

It was also pointed out that the exporters were losing their export contracts because their L/Cs were expiring and production had come to a grinding halt due to raw material shortage.