SWABI, Sept 27: The newly-elected president of the Sarhad Chamber of Commerce and Industry, Liaqat Ahmad Khan, has said Peshawar can become a hub of economic activities if peace is restored in the war-ravaged Afghanistan.

Briefing journalists on his priorities here on Wednesday, he said peace was vital for trade with Central Asian republics and Afghanistan and it could only be ensured if tranquillity returned to Afghanistan and Pakistan’s volatile tribal region.

This would make Peshawar a centre of trade activities and also strengthen NWFP’s industrial sector, he said.

He said the NWFP was lagging behind in the industrial sector and there was a need for collective efforts to strengthen it.

He said the government and industrialists would have to work jointly because they could not do anything alone.

Mr Khan, who also remained president of the Gadoon Chamber of Commerce and Industry, recalled that former NWFP governor Syed Iftikhar Hussain Shah had said on March 12, 2002, that 18mw of power produced by the Pehur Hydro-Power Project would be provided to the Gadoon Amazai Industrial Estate. “After completion of the project, cheap power would be available to Gadoon industrialists,” he quoted Mr Shah as saying.

He said the project, to be completed in a year, was located at downstream of the Gandaf tunnel and was specifically designed for hydro power generation.