PCJCCI President SM Naveed demands incentive package for manufacturers to create jobs in country
LAHORE March 12 (News Inspection) S.M Naveed, President Pak-China Joint Chamber of Commerce and Industry (PCJCCI) has urged the government to develop a package of incentives to encourage rapid growth of the manufacturing sector to meet its target of creating 50 million jobs in the country.
It was stated by him while addressing a think tank session held today at PCJCCI premises.
The Think Tank Session was also attended by Daud Ahmed, Senior Vice President, Khalid Raffique Choudhry, Vice President, Salahuddin Hanif, Secretary General and a number of the Executive Committee Members of PCJCCI.
S.M. Naveed said that the economy should grow between three and eight percent annually to be able to employ youth, while the investment rate should remain at 30 percent. The development of the services sector is beneficial to the economy only if it pays fair taxes; otherwise the sector creates few jobs and has little impact on the life of the common man, he added and also emphasized to expand the ambit of the taxpayers rather than increasing the tax burden on the existing tax payers.
Daud Ahmed, Senior Vice President PCJCCI said that, currently the investment rate is around 19 percent only so we should seek help from Chinese roadmap to achieve the economic prosperity on fast track basis in the country, as China had attained the investment rate of up to 38 percent in record time. He further said that, Pakistan could achieve similar success by introducing business-friendly policies coupled with lowest possible cost of doing business.
Khalid Raffique Choudhry, Vice President PCJCCI, expressing his views on this occasion, said that Pakistan’s economy was facing a multitude of problems, among which unemployment is the most alarming, as three million youth emerge every year to seek jobs and only 900,000 managed to get jobs. He also stressed upon broader participation of the business community in the budget making process. The business community’s confidence in the budget making process is very low due to greater influence of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and other multilateral development banks in setting priorities for the federal budget, he said.
Salahuddin Hanif, Secretary General PCJCCI shared that, a corruption-free tax collection system is required to increase the number of taxpayers in real terms. He told that there were 400,000 industrial electricity connections in Pakistan, but only 47,800 were paying taxes to the government.
