Promotion of business is the best option to turn-around the sagging economy, arrest the trend of rising poverty, unemployment & social unrest and government should take all necessary measures to remove the problems hindering the growth of trade & industry, opined Mian Shaukat Masud, President, Islamabad Chamber of Commerce & Industry while chairing a meeting of businessmen at ICCI.

He said the “World Bank Doing Business-2010” report has projected no improvement in ease of doing business in Pakistan as the country continued to remain at 85th position in world among 131 countries, which gave credence to our assertions that conditions were really tough for promoting business in Pakistan.

The businessmen said issues like resource constraints, rising cost of doing business, non-availability of soft loans, high interest rate, power crisis, lack of access to global markets etc. were preventing the growth of business activities and urged upon the government to remove them for creating and promoting a pro-growth environment in the country.

They said government should gain an understanding of the major problems confronting the economy and evolve a clear vision in consultation with business community to steer the country out of economic mess.

Mian Shaukat said instead of relying on International donor agencies, like IMF, World Bank and Asian Development Bank for aid, government should convince the world to discover the resources and potential of Pakistan through trade and not aid as Pakistan was a land of immense investment opportunities with its vast natural resources mostly unutilized as yet.

He said government should also remove barriers for investment to attract more foreign investment and facilitate the business community for exploring new international markets.

Businessmen said that completion of major infrastructure projects; rapid industrialization and modernization of agriculture sector were the keys to future prosperity of business & people in Pakistan.