PESHAWAR, April 4: NWFP Governor Iftikhar Husain Shah has stressed upon pharmacists and drug manufacturing companies to explore local resources for the benefit of the people.

Speaking as chief guest at the inaugural session of a three-day seminar “Good manufacturing, storage and laboratory practices” here on Friday at the Area Study Centre, University of Peshawar, the governor appreciated the role played by the pharmaceutical companies with regard to provision of healthcare facilities to the people,

He said the government would provide them with more opportunities to give a further boost to this vital sector.

Mr Shah urged pharmaceutical firms to come forward and set up more units in the Frontier province to provide jobs to people. He said the government would cooperate with industrialists in setting up of drug factories as it believed in massive industrialization to put the province on the path of development.

The governor was of the view that the seminar would provide an opportunity to local manufacturers to share knowledge with their counterparts from other provinces, which would enable them to understand ways and means about the development and promotion of drug manufacturing industries here.

With restoration of peace and security in Afghanistan the drug firms had a golden opportunity to explore the possibility of investment in Afghanistan, which, he said, would benefit the people of this province, besides increasing the income of the manufacturers.

The NWFP had some geographical disadvantages in the shape of non-availability of a seaport but the establishment of an stable government in Afghanistan had opened a new window for the businessmen of this province to extend their business link to Central Asia via Afghanistan, he added.

The governor also urged the drug makers to pay more attention on quality and standard of their products so that they could capture international markets for their products and earn handsome foreign exchange.

He suggested that the organizers of this seminar should send their recommendations to the federal ministry of health at the end.

Earlier, Dr Farzana Chaudhry of the federal health ministry said that holding of such events provided people with more know-how as to how to invest in the pharmaceutical sector.

She said the government wanted to enable the local firms to explore the possibility of acquiring local raw material in order to promote the pharmaceutical industry.

This seminar, she said would also enable the government to know about the hardships of the manufacturers and to mitigate their problems.