Daily Times

Lahore: The 6th Annual Business Research Conference of Lahore School of Economics on “Managing Business in Pakistan with an Emphasis on CPEC related Opportunities and Challenges” took place over the last weekend.

The two-day conference included special thematic sessions to highlight the key areas of research regarding opportunities and challenges of China Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC). Also, the conference extended its discourse to explicate the prevalent opportunities and challenges of businesses in Pakistan. The sessions during the conference featured 22 papers by distinguished national and international researchers.

LSC rector, Dr. Shahid Amjad Chaudhary, in his opening remarks, said that thie conference aimed at building and fostering strong industry and academia linkages. “This conference has invited both prominent practitioners and academics to confer on business opportunities and challenges in the wake of CPEC. These and other similar initiatives reaffirm the vision and mission of the institution.”

Four sessions were held on the second day of the conference, one of which focused on CPEC driven business opportunities and challenges. This session was chaired by Dr. Shahid Rashid, Executive Director, CPEC -Centre of Excellence, PIDE, Islamabad. Dr. Rashid underlined a wide array of business opportunities for small and medium enterprises (SMEs) of Pakistan. He said that CPEC had provided numerous opportunities for the Pakistani entrepreneurs and they should be facilitated by the government to leverage these opportunities for the increased industrial growth and expansion in Pakistan. He encouraged the government to take CPEC policy initiatives so that entrepreneurs could be equipped with appropriate skills in the areas of product development and innovation, supply chain linkages and connections and contemporary marketing techniques. He also suggested that universities could play a pivotal role by nurturing entrepreneurial mindset so that students could realise these opportunities for tangible gains after their university education.

Mahvesh Mahmud discussed the implications of CPEC with respect to the global supply chain. Her analysis focused on the time and cost savings in the wake of CPEC infrastructure development in Pakistan. She emphasieed that the Pakistani business organisations could gain efficiencies in their supply chain management for competitive advantage in both local and global markets. She argued that currently Pakistan was lacking a supply chain strategy and CPEC provided an opportunity for improved linkages among provinces, special economic zones and business organisations.

Dr. Liaqat Ali Shah, Policy Head, Trade and Industry Cooperation, at CPEC-Centre of Excellence, PIDE, Islamabad, then presented a case study of Faisalabad Industrial Zone as a special economic zone. He said that special economic zones were part of the CPEC. “Special economic zones are geared towards providing world class infrastructure, uninterrupted power supply and other regulatory incentives. It is appropriate time for SMEs especially in Faisalabad region to focus their attention on value addition and diversify products for increased share in the textile exports of Pakistan and be part of these special economic zones.”

The conference also focused on the prevalent and growing issues that the businesses organisations faced in Pakistan. The second and the third sessions were devoted to the issue.

In her presentation, Zonaira Shehper said her research found that workaholism was positively associated with work-family inter-role conflict. “Work-family inter-role conflict has detrimental impact on workaholics’ overall physical and mental wellbeing and thereby it can lead to poor physical and mental health problems. These negative associations can deteriorate the performance of workaholics at workplace and therefore; organisations should encourage their employees to maintain balance in their professional and personal lives for improved productivity. Haadiah Yasir presented her research paper and found that job security was adversely affecting attendance and employee productivity was negatively related with in the banking sector. Mehreen Altaf presented her research on work-family enrichment and subjective career success. She suggested that organisations and human resource practitioners should facilitate supportive culture at workplaces.

Published in Daily Times, April 24^th 2018.