Business community Thursday vehemently demanded the government special package of incentives and relief cushion to accelerate trade and industrial activities across the board to boost exports in the country. This demand was made during United Business Group (UBG) 50 members core committee meeting held here today in which UBG patron-in-chief S.M Munir, central chairman Iftikhar Ali Malik, FPCCI President Engineer Daroo Khan Achakzai, Senior Vice President FPCCI Ikhtiyar Baig, Ilyas Bilour, Mian Muhammad Adrees, Sheikh Riaz, Zafar Bakhtawari, Malik Sohail Hussain and other prominent businessmen across the country participated. They unanimously called for special support to the large scale manufacturing (LSM) along with SMEs which are recognised in the world as the backbone of the economy. On this occasion, UBG central chairman Iftikhar Ali Malik business community reposed full confidence in the dynamic leadership of Prime Minister Imran Khan and now it is the government’s turn to create business friendly environment in the country to speed up economic activities. He said Pakistan is an ideal country for investors and joint venturing, whereby peace has been restored to our cities as a result of various security operations. The economic stability which we enjoy today in Karachi is a testament to this peace. He said the government should go an extra mile for bringing foreign investments to Pakistan besides strengthening the national institutions and ensuring good governance by cracking down against the unrestrained corruption in the country. There is a dire need of chalking out a comprehensive plan to court foreign investment in the country and provide them all facilities through one window operation by terminating red-tapism and extra legal constraints which hampers foreign investment procedure. He is optimistic that the incumbent government must set a clear and focused direction to address key issues of governance, security, energy and inconsistent policy implementation, which in the recent past has severely affected inflow of foreign direct investment in the country. S.M. Munir demanded the government to initiate process of bringing positive changes in rules and business environment to enhance the export in collaboration with the industry. He said the government should also focus its attention on the neglected sector of domestic commerce which has thirty two percent shares in the GDP while it employs twenty percent of the workers. He also assured the government of all due support in materializing the business friendly policies in the country. FPCCI President Daroo Khan Achakzai said external trade can be revived if all the sectors are dealt on equal terms and cumbersome rules and regulations are made reasonable. He said the previous government also announced special package to five major sectors while the rest were ignored, which was seen as preferential treatment by some stakeholders. He said in order to encourage businessmen to stay in the country and for stopping capital flight, there is a need to provide special incentives like tax concessions, rebate on bank loans, subsidzed power and gas bills etc. He also called upon the government to provide relief to textile and leather units to keep the wheel of industries moving. He stressed the need to boost exports by giving incentives to exporters. He also stressed for evolving further growth-oriented monetary policies to help strengthen the national economy on sound footings. Published in Daily Times, January 18th 2019.