Pakistan is passing through the toughest time of its history as the flood has created a large scale damage across Pakistan and as per estimates agricultural damages are more than 2.9 billion dollars that include over 700,000 acres of lost cotton crops, 200,000 acres of sugar cane and 200,000 acres of rice, in addition to the loss of over 500,000 tonnes of stocked wheat, 300,000 acres of animal fodder and the stored grain losses, thus European countries and USA should relax duties to give more excess to the Pakistani products, said Mr.Zahid Maqbool, President of Islamabad Chamber of Commerce & Industry while presiding over a meeting of commerce committee at ICCI.

He said that Pakistan is facing serious economic challenges and recent flood has further dented its economy that would take a long time for recovery. Foreign countries along with providing financial and material support to help flood effectees also provide opportunities to Pakistani exporters to send their products on low duties to support Pakistani in enhancing its exports.

Government on war footing should also develop a comprehensive plan for the immediate rehabilitation and reconstruction of damaged infrastructure and public-private partnership should be encouraged to come of out this difficult phase, said President ICCI.  He said that thousands miles of highways, railways network and a large number of building have collapsed causing a loss of billions to the Pakistan’s economy and emphasized that international community should provide its complete support to meet these challenges.

Private sector is contributing to mitigate the suffering of flood affected and government should device a concrete plan for the disbursement of collected funds and undertaking rehabilitation and reconstruction activities.  He said that government should provide seeds to the affected farmers free of cost and tax department should also consider waiving off taxes to provide relief to the flood victims.

Mr.Zahid Maqbool said that a large area of cultivated land and crops has put a serious dent on our agriculture and Pakistan has lost at least 725,000 tons of wheat in the country’s worst flooding in 80 years and demanded the EU and USA governments to help Pakistan in the current crises and allow Pakistani exporters easy access to penetrate in their markets.