FROM MENAHILL RASHID
FAISALABAD: Four agreements were inked during the last day of the 3-day Pakistan Economic Conference (PEC) which would open new avenues of foreign and local investment in the IT (Information Technology) sector.
Addressing the concluding session of the conference organized by the Faisalabad Chamber of Commerce & Industry (FCCI) group leader Mian Javed Iqbal termed it as a total success which has provided a unique opportunity to the participants to share their ideas and experience in addition to motivating traders to switch over to the manufacturing sector.
He further said adding that, the business community is fully prepared to play its role for the economic development of Pakistan and we have decided to utilize our own resources instead of depending on the Government. He said that the business community itself bears the entire expenses of PEC while chamber’s Presidents from all over the country were also invited to take home the message of innovation in businesses and replicate the new business models in their respective areas. He suggested that follow-up meetings of this mega event must be arranged regularly with periodicity of yearly or quarterly meetings on innovative and emerging technologies relating to businesses. He was appreciative of the first session of PEC on Islamic banking which was largely attended during sideline meetings as majority of the businessmen are inclined to shun traditional and adopt Islamic banking which is in consonance with their religious, social and moral values. “The participants also provided an opportunity to directly interact with the religious scholars to dispel their reservations about the Riba based economy”, he added. He said that the basic theme of this conference was “Take your businesses to the next level” and in this connection all emerging businesses were discussed in detail in addition to the traditional textile sector. He said that during this conference a wide range of subjects was covered including Islamic banking, IT, E-commerce, new technologies, software houses, use of social media in businesses, agriculture and value addition in this segment, health, health care facility, pharmaceutical industry and export of medicines, SME sector, main streaming of female entrepreneurs, tourism, franchise, business model and special economic zones. Mr. Atif Munir Sheikh President FCCI said that this conference has started yielding positive and productive results immediately with the start of this meeting. “FCCI has decided to launch a “joint venture company” in collaboration with panacloud to fulfill the financial needs of talented youth that has expertise in IT sector and could play their role in giving a quantum jump to the IT exports”, he said and added that it would spur the IT related activities in this region and would also help traders to start online businesses along with their traditional ways of selling and purchase. He said that the four agreements were inked between BlockChain Company with CFO Club of Pakistan and Genius Minds etc. It was told that Sitara group has established the first IT Park in Faisalabad which has sufficient space to accommodate individuals and IT related companies with a facility of plug and play. Mr. Arif Ehsan Malik Chairman APBUMA underlined the importance of the SME sector and said that the Government must dole out targeted subsidies to the small and medium entrepreneurs. He said that the SME sector has limited financial resources and hence they may also be allowed to import cheap used machinery. During the last day of this conference special sittings were arranged on real estate, business models and special economic zones.
Later Mian Muhammad Idrees, Mian Javed Iqbal, Mr. Atif Munir Sheikh and Mr. Azhar Chaudhary presented shields to the sponsors and organizers of the conference.
