Staff Report
ISLAMABAD: Minister for Planning, Development and Special Initiatives Asad Umar chaired a meeting on Saturday to review the situation and consider proposals related to the management of supply chains of essential commodities during the partial or complete shutdown in various parts of the country.
The meeting discussed proposals for ensuring continuous operation of various industries, especially those included in the food and medicine supply chains, during the COVID-19 emergency.
In addition to this, matters related to swift supply of electric power and petroleum products were also discussed. It was decided that detailed safety guidelines for the workers will be outlined for those industries which are required to be kept operational to ensure the supply of essential commodities, it said.
The guidelines will be implemented in collaboration with the industry associations. The meeting directed the Ministry of Industries to closely monitor any issues faced by the industries identified for continuous operations and address them in a proactive manner. The Ministry of Commerce was directed to make assessments for import requirement of such industries and remove the bottlenecks, if any.
It was decided that the proposals finalised in the meeting would be shared with the provinces for their input before submission to the National Coordination Committee for final approval. Ministers for power, national food security and economic affairs, advisor on commerce and industries as well as senior officials participated in the videoconference.
