MULTAN,March 7th: Former Punjab Caretaker Minister for Industries and President of MCCI Khawaja Jalaluddin Roomi has said that Chambers of Commerce and Industries have a leading role to play for achieving economic and trade potential of the region through greater integration and connectivity. Talking to Mediamen here today Felicitating the PML-N Government for organising a successful ECO summit he said that it would emerge far-reaching effect on the economyof the region. He urged upon the ECO member countries to ease the Visa facilitation especially for business community among ECO countries that would in turn help enhance better contacts and trade facilitation. He said ECO Chamber of Commerce and Industries needs to play a key role for achieving the objective. He said that what a pity that ECO region accounts for 16% of the world’s population but only 2% of the world’s trade. Trade and investment are the areas that the ECO countries specially need to focus and for that regional connectivity is all the more necessary.He suggested that in addition to ECO initiatives and CPEC, regional connectivity must be enhanced through bilateral and multilateral agreements. He cited the CASA-1000, TAPI and Central Asian Regional Economic Cooperation in this regard. He said that with dedicated efforts the ECO countries can achieve the objectives described in the declaration of the just concluded summit.He also suggested that ECO countries should promote the tourism and echange of delegations .He emphasised for visa facilitation between ECO countries to encourage economic activities. Roomi said that Pakistan had made great economic strides in the last three to four years. Pakistan was the founding member of ECO and now it had a key role to play for its success in realising the goal of economic development. Roomi said that Pakistan with a population of 200 million, a liberal investment regime and a bank rate as low as 6% was a great attraction for foreign business and traders community. He said there was enthusiasm shown by representatives of ECO countries at the recent summit for participation in CPEC projects. This would help generate economic activities among the ECO countries.
