MULTAN,Nov 16th: Chambers and trade associations of Southern Punjab
have announced to unconditional support to the United Business Group (UBG) in
the election of Federation of Chamber of Commerce & Industry (FPCCI) during
an election campaign for upcoming annual elections of the Federation of
Pakistan Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FPCCI), scheduled to be held in the
last week of December 2018.
Delivering his speech at a luncheon hosted by Mian Tanvir A Sheikh
ex-President of FPCCI at Multan Chamber, the UBG Patron in chief S.M.Munir said
that UBG started gaining enormous support from different chambers across the
country and accelerated electioneering despite the fact that the opposition is
so weak that even without campaign they would win the election by great margin.He
said that since Prime Minister Imran khan has promised to make South Punjab a
province(Fifth federating unit),it would be an important province of the
country which would connect four other provinces. He said that Government did
nothing for enhancing the exports and discouraging the import of luxuries to
lessen the budgetary deficit. He was optimistic that exports would be increased
by 2 to 3 billion dollars within months if Government takes the issue seriously
and properly. “New reservoirs would not only be generating economical
electricity but would also be meeting our irrigation needs and above all would
be instrumental in controlling floods. We will attempt to convince the
government to simultaneously start work on two to three reservoirs,” he added.
Iftikhar Ali Malik said that a working plan has been devolved for second
round of the election campaign and all the leaders and workers have come into
full action and started the campaign strongly.
The SAARC Chamber VP said that UBG leadership worked hard and restored the
respect of business community with the government and tried to solve most of
the problems and would continue doing so in future as well. He said that recent
simple example of start of refunds of sales and rebate tax was a great
achievement of UBG . Iftikhar Ali Malik said that only democracy prevails in
trade politics and good reputed businessmen with integrity and dedication were
given responsibilities so that that could contribute to image building of FPCCI
and resolve issues of the business community. He said that after the success
his group would focus on energy, trade and investment and law and order to drive
desired economic results.“Pakistan, like other developing countries of the
region, is facing growing energy demand dilemma and the private sector would
have to work hard to exploit all resources to bridge the demand,” he said.
He said that the FPCCI would convince the government to expedite work on
new water reservoirs to overcome the water shortage.
Candidate for Presidentship of FPCCI Dawood Khan Achakzai, Vice
Presidents Mirza Ikhtiar Baig,Muhammad
Arshad Jamal, Ijaz Khan Mukhtar,and Abdul Hameed also spoke on the problems
confronted by the business community. The lucheon was attended by President of MCCI Muhammad Sarfraz, SVP
Khawaja Badar Munir, Vice President
Muhammad Amjad Sheikh, President of WCCI Multan Seerat Fatima, President
of Industrial Estate management board Multan Khawaja Jalaluddin Roomi,
Jamaluddin Achakzai, PCGA’s leaders Haji Muhammad Akram, Shehzad Ali Khan, Former Chairman of APBUMA Syed Muhammad Aasim
Shah, Chairman of Dryport Trust Khawaja Muhammad Fazail, Zukfikar Nasuha, Uzma
Hussain, Khawaja Muhammad Yousaf, Zafar Bakhtawari, Zubair Malik, Abdul Sami
Khan, Shakil Ahmed, Zulfikar Ali Anjum, Malik Asrar Ahmed Awan, Khawaja
Muhammad Hussain, Khawaja Muhammad Usman, Mumtaz Ali Babur, Imirza Ali Ahmed,
Rehan Arshad, Sheikh Fazal Elahi, Hameed Akhtar Chattha,Shakil Chaudhry,
Khawaja Habibi-ur-rnehman and Mian Iqbal Hassan
