ISLAMABAD, July 9: The prime minister's taskforce on poverty alleviation and employment generation has submitted its recommendations to Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain.

This was stated by Federal Minister for Privatization Dr Abdul Hafeez Sheikh, who is also chairman of the taskforce, while speaking at a national workshop on 'better strategies and increased profits' held jointly under the auspices of USAID Mission in Pakistan and Smeda (Small and Medium Enterprises Development Authority) on Friday.

Dr Sheikh asked the private sector to rapidly expand job opportunities to reduce unemployment and poverty in order to compliment the substantial progress on macro economic reform agenda. "There is a need to improve profitability, productivity and competitiveness to stimulate growth and employment, particularly at the SME level," he said.

The minister said Pakistan had made substantial progress on its macro reform agenda, which was evident from the six per cent growth rate, the accelerating domestic investment and historic response to its privatization programme, which has yielded proceeds worth Rs45 billion.

Dr Sheikh observed that the country's business was facing increased competition in today's demanding global market and to succeed in this environment, individual firms would need to cap into upgraded industrial structures.

He said upgrading the Pakistani industries to compete in global markets represents an opportunity to develop and implement a range of second-generation reforms. Unlike most of reforms, he said, the upgrading of Pakistani industry must be led by better strategy as articulated by self- selected business leaders and selected representatives from the public sector.

He appreciated the interest and assistance being provided by USAID in collaboration with Smeda to encourage the various industrial sectors to develop growth strategies, which would lead to improvement in value added production and increased profitability of Pakistani firm.