Pakistani nation posses great talent, which needs to be exploited with quality education and proper spending of budget amount, stated Mian Shaukat Masud, President Islamabad Chamber of Commerce in a meeting held at  ICCI.

He said that according to a report national spending on education as a percentage of GDP has been falling consecutively for the past two years i.e. 2.50 % in 2006-07, 2.47% in 2007-2008 and 2.10% in 2008-09. The fall in the spending in the education budget is alarming, because for the progress of our country spread of quality education and proper utilization of education funds is greatly needed, said Mian Shaukat Masud.

President stated that public sectors schools must be equipped with the latest teaching aids and teachers should be trained accordingly. He said that for economic development of our country, education sector has great significance and importance, thus provincial government should make sure proper utilization of funds on education.

Mian Shaukat Masud said that government should also focus more on Technical education which is significantly essential for the industrial and economic development of our country. He stressed on the need for establishing more technical training and research institutes across the country for the rapid growth of industrial sector.

There must be strong linkage of academia and industry, so that industries could get benefits of the research of the academic institutes, he said. President ICCI said that industries need assistance in the product development in accordance with the international standards, which can be achieved with the close coordination of research institutes and academia. Mian Shaukat said that research institutes through Chambers must share industrial research projects for improving efficiency in the industries.

Islamabad Chamber of Commerce is in the process of inking MOUs with various important universities for research in various sectors, he said. President added that ICCI in near future shall also develop Information Resource Center, which will carry out various research projects, that shall be linked with the website of ICCI.