Pakistan is a confronting with multiple challenges and to come out of economic crises, government should develop a Think Tank with the Public-Private partnership to jointly evolve strategies and find out solutions to come out of troubled waters, Mr.Mahfooz Elahi has said, addressing a meeting of representatives of trade and industry, at Islamabad Chamber of Commerce & Industry.

Government through continued dialogue process with the participation of public and private sectors representatives must evolve concrete solutions for sustainable development in the country.

President said that government in consultation with the Private Sector should initially focus on a few burning issues instead of opening a big Pandora box. He said that it was observed that there were only talks on a big list of identified problems, but no viable solution and implementation mechanism could be developed.

He said that government a couple of years ago had formed a Business Persons Council, but it could not meet its objectives and only a few meetings were held. There must be continued process of table talks between the representatives of public and private sector and government should give weightage to the voice of the private sector, which is the main engine of economic growth.

The business community and the general public have gone under great stress due to shortage and acceleration of prices of electricity, gas and petroleum products, whereas sky rocketing prices of daily use items have made the life of a common man extremely difficult.

Mr.Mahfooz Elahi said that Pakistan is blessed with enormous opportunities and resources, but due to mismanagement problems are compounding day by day. At this critical situation, government should react fast to save the country for going into more troubles and should start a thorough consultation process with all stakeholders.

Mr.Mahfooz Elahi said that through formation of Think-Tank with Public Private Partnership, solution of a number of problems can be found. He said that researcher, chamber’s representatives, academia representatives and policy makers must be the part of it, which should meet on regular basis to accomplish the given tasks instead of lip services only.  He said that both sectors must be asked to come up with viable solutions and stressed to continue the thought process until a road map is developed with consensus.

President ICCI said that Islamabad Chamber of Commerce & Industry has developed its own Think Tank, which is working on specific issues of national importance to give concrete solution to the government. He said ICCI has developed a team of researchers, businessmen and academiato develop long and short term strategies to overcome problems giving its solutions.