Sardar Yasir Ilyas Khan, President, Islamabad Chamber of Commerce and Industry (ICCI) said that Pakistan has abundant IT & media talent and tremendous potential to promote export of content, IT and software products, therefore, he called upon the government to consider establishing a Media-cum-Tech City in Islamabad in order to develop an ecosystem for promotion of media and IT sectors. He said this City could accommodate the media and ICT related houses and give a boost to business activities. He said this while addressing a delegation of National Press Club Islamabad that visited ICCI led by Senior Vice President Arshad Waheed and Secretary General Anwar Raza to congratulate the newly elected team of ICCI. Group Leader Afzal Butt, former President Tariq Chaudhry, Finance Secretary Sagheer Chaudhry, Siddique Sajjid Baloch, Azhar Jatoi and others were in the delegation.
Sardar Yasir Ilyas Khan said that Media-cum-Tech City would provide a good platform to our young media and IT professionals even from remote areas to show their creativity for launching new businesses and thus contribute towards better economic development of the country and promotion of exports. He said that the government should also introduce a relief package for start-ups to foster an ecosystem of entrepreneurship in the country. He further said that many countries have made drastic cuts in interest rates with the aim to support businesses to combat the Covid-19 pandemic and urged that SBP should also reduce the policy interest rate bringing it down to 2-3 percent that will give a boost to SMEs and help accelerate economic activity in the country.
Speaking at the occasion, Arshad Waheed Senior Vice President and Anwar Raza, Secretary General, National Press Club, Islamabad said that the business community was playing an important role in the economic development of the country and the government should address its key issues on priority. They said that Pakistan needed to attract more local and foreign investment for developing many sectors of its economy including tourism, energy, infrastructure development etc. and urged that the government should focus on establishing a one window operation facility to facilitate the potential investors. They said that the current policies of FBR were not supportive in business promotion and FBR should re-orient and re-align its tax policies in a manner that should facilitate the private sector in promoting business activities. Ms. Fatma Azim Senior Vice President, Abdul Rehman Khan Vice President ICCI and Muhammad Ejaz Abbasi former President ICCI appreciated the role of journalistic community for providing updated information to the society and added that they should also cooperate in highlighting the key issues of business community to bring them into the notice of policymakers for redress that would help in improving the economy.
M. Shakeel Munir, Umais Khattak, Khalid Chaudhry, Ch. Ashraf Farzand and others also spoke at the occasion and stressed the need for more close cooperation between ICCI and NPC to promote the common cause of their members.