Daily Times

Bahawalpur Mayor Aqeel Najam Hashmi visited the Islamabad Chamber of Commerce & Industry (ICCI) and held a meeting with ICCI President Sheikh Amir Waheed, ICCI Senior Vice President M Naveed Malik and ICCI Vice President Nisar Mirza to explore prospects of a public-private partnership for focusing on youth development.

He said promoting youth was priority area of his interest as youth was a great asset of the country and new opportunities for youth entrepreneurship and youth employment could be created with the cooperation of private sector.

Aqeel Najam Hashmi congratulated ICCI for successfully organising business opportunities conference and awards ceremony in the last week of June at Istanbul, Turkey and hoped that this initiative of the chamber would help in further improving bilateral trade between Pakistan and Turkey. He apprised the local business community of the development activities undertaken by Bahawalpur Metropolitan Corporation Islamabad (MCI) and shared with them his future plans.

Speaking at the occasion, Sheikh Amir Waheed, M Naveed Malik and Nisar Mirza said that close cooperation of local government was essential for smooth growth of business activities. He said that most of the issues of business community were related to the local governments due to which their role was important to resolve issues and create conducive environment for trade and industry.

Sheikh Amir said that youth development was key priority of ICCI and the chamber has taken many initiatives for youth development. He said ICCI has constituted a Young Entrepreneurs Forum that works on various youth promotion activities. He said the chamber has also signed Memorandums of Understanding with local universities to promote industry-academy linkages and foster entrepreneurship culture in youth so that youngsters instead of seeking jobs could start their own businesses and create jobs for others. He assured that ICCI would cooperate with local governments including Bahawalpur MCI in initiatives aimed at youth development.

Dildar Abbasi, Khalid Chaudhry, Ashfaq Chatha, Tahir Mahmood, Fahim Khan, Sheraz Siddiqui, Chaudhry Irfan, Nasira Ali, Asad Haider and others were also present at the occasion.

Published in Daily Times, August 6^th 2018.