Daily Times

Economic and media experts at ten-day training sessions have said that Khyber Pakhtunkhwa was blessed with plenty of natural resources including mines and mineral, tourism sites, gemstones and water and required special attention of its journalists to highlight these hidden treasures for economic prosperity and wellbeing of people. The experts said that there was a lot of scope for economic, and business journalism in the province being a gateway between Pakistan and Afghanistan and onward to Central Asia and asked print and electronic journalists to use their pen and cameras for highlighting true economic, commerce and trade potential of the region.

Besides its geostrategic location, they said KP’s importance has been further enhanced in the wake of CPEC under which Special Economic Zones (SEZ) including Rashakai SEZ in Nowshera district that would make KP a hub of trade and industrialization.

These were key points of the 10-day training sessions organized by Centre for Excellence in Journalism Institute of Business Administration (CEJ-IBA) at Karachi.

Different sessions were held and addressed by economic experts, academicians and prominent journalists including former Chairman Pakistan Electronic Media Regulatory Authority (PEMRA) Absar Alam, Bilal Memon, Khurram Hussain, Shahzeb Ahmad, Shahbaz Rana, Prof Dr Qazi Masood, Dr Asim Bashir and others.

They shared their experiences, scope of economic, and commerce journalism in the country especially in Khyber Pakthunkhwa. The speakers said that KP was known as home to precious and semi-precious varieties of gemstones including precious emerald, ruby and sapphire offering great opportunities for investors to earn maximum economic gains.

They said that Pakistan is fifth among world countries have largest unexplored gemstones reservoirs mostly found in KP and great responsibilities are rest on media professionals of KP to highlight it to attract investment. The experts said like crime, courts and political beats, commerce was also a specialized beat that required the same attention of a news organizations and TV channels like others beats due to its importance of KP.

The journalists of KP also visited Pakistan Stock Exchange, State Bank of Pakistan, Chamber of Commerce where they were briefed about its functions. Director CEJ-IBA Ambar Shamsi highlighted the objectives of the training program and thanked the organizers and KP journalists for their participation and interest. Around 20 journalists of print and electronic media from KP attended and were given certificates at the end of session.