FAISALABAD, March 29: Former APCEA chairman Mian Muhammad Latif invited the attention of the Punjab governor towards kidnapping of the Chenab’s general manager by armed men some six days ago in the Sheikhupura district.

The governor assured that he would direct the IGP to immediately recover the abducted general manager.

Addressing members of the All Pakistan Cloth Exporters Association (APCEA), Punjab Governor Lt-Gen Khalid Maqbool assured the investors that the government would extend fullest cooperation to them in establishing industrial units.

He said the government was providing certain concessions to the trading community. In this respect, he said the abolition of the wealth tax and merger of over 40 taxes into five or six taxes was a big achievement of the military government.

He said Prime Minister Mir Zafarullah Khan Jamali had constituted a number of study groups under the supervision of Hafeez Sheikh and Humayun Akhtar to suggest measures to enlarge the scope of investment in the private sector and the relief for the expansion of the industrial sector.

The governor said the Punjab government was also attaching importance to the housing sector and had chalked out a number of housing projects in the province.

Under these schemes, low-cost housing schemes would be started in almost all big cities of the province he said.

Banks’ demand: Account-holders have condemned the threat made by commercial banks that small accounts would be closed if the banks were not allowed to increase service charges.

Reacting to certain banks’ demand that the State Bank of Pakistan should allow them to increase the service charges on accounts based on sharing profit and loss, the chairman of Faisalabad Consumer’s Association, Aftab Ahmed, termed it shocking in view of the fact that “the banks were already making billions of rupees of pre-tax profit”.

He said the accounts based on sharing profit and loss constituted 85 per cent of the total. These banks would thus be closing down 85 per cent of their branches rendering millions of people jobless, he claimed.

He pointed out that these bankers were conveniently ignoring the fact that they benefited handsomely from the liquidity of these depositors whose money stayed in the bank longer than that of the 15 per cent businessmen on the list of their clients.

The 85 per cent depositors were the real backbone of banking system, he maintained.

Mr Ahmed added that some banks had already raised their service charges.