Advisor to Prime Minister on Commerce and Investment Abdul Razak Dawood said on Saturday that Faisalabad was ready to lead the national economy with phenomenal growth in conventional and emerging industrial sectors after excelling in the field of textiles.
Addressing the first session of 2nd-day of the Pakistan Economic Conference (PEC) 2022, he appreciated the dynamism and entrepreneurship of the city and said that it was filled with the monotonous sound of “Khat, Khat” of power looms in 60s when he had visited this city first time.
However, when he revisited Faisalabad in 2019, the industrial sector was facing closure but due to viable policies of the government, the city regained a new momentum as industrial sector was working with full capacity and most of units were not getting skilled workers, he added. He said that now another era of progress and prosperity was knocking at its doorsteps as business community was now contemplating to switch over to agriculture, IT, online businesses and a long chain of other sectors instead of depending on the textile alone.
He was optimistic that the city would make a phenomenal progress because of its inherent dynamism as the people of the city had innovative ideas and skills to excel in any field. He also quoted Sialkot which had developed its own airport and said that Faisalabad would also undertake mega development projects from its own resources.
Commenting on the industrial growth, he said that people were ready to switch over from trading to the manufacturing which would encourage exports. “We should not restrict our exports to the regional level but introduce our products throughout the world particularly in the untapped global markets”, he added.
He said that Pakistan had inked Preferential Trade Agreement (PTA) with Uzbekistan and Afghanistan which would provide access to Pakistani exporters to a huge market of 72 million individuals in landlocked Central Asian states. He said that air-link would also be established very soon between Lahore and Uzbekistan and hoped that this arrangement would facilitate business community to export hundreds of traditional and non-traditional items to these countries.
He also quoted an exhibition of Pakistani products organized in Nairobi and said that people of this region were impressed with the competitiveness and quality of Pakistani products and it would open new avenues for Pakistani exporters.
“Our economic sovereignty is directly linked with exports and hence our business community must spread throughout the globe to achieve this object”, he added. He also underlined the importance of female entrepreneurs and said that Pakistan could not make progress by isolating them from the national economy.
He also acknowledged the importance of IT sector and said that it had recorded 47 percent record growth during this year. “This sector is totally tax-free and our youth must exploit its potentiality not only to earn profit for them but also fetch precious foreign exchange for the country without any major investment”, he added.
He said that target of IT exports had been fixed at 3.7 billion dollars and hoped that it would be achieved very easily because of the keen interests taken by our young start-ups in this field. He appreciated the excellent arrangements made by the organizers of Pakistan Economic Conference and also photographed with them.
Later, he had a series of meetings with the office bearers of different trade organizations and assured to resolve their genuine issues on top priority basis.
Earlier, a complete session on IT was held. The moderator of this session was Dr Rizwan Khan CTO BizTech Consulting Vietnam while keynote speaker was Veqarul Islam Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Jaffar Business Systems. Among its speakers and panelists include Zia Khan Chief Operating Officer PIAIC, Badar Khushnood Cofounder Fishry.com, Ex-Google, Facebook & Twitter Consultant, Ahmad Manzoor Founder & CEO Pakistan Blockchain Institute & AnZ Technologies, Mr. Noman Chandna Director & Co-Founder Rholab, Asanbuy.pk & xUnilever and Ms. Javaria Siddique Freelancer, Voice-over artist, Animator, Entrepreneur & YouTuber.