ISLAMABAD: Advisor to the Prime Minister on Commerce Abdul Razzaq Dawood on Wednesday said the government had aimed to provide friendly environment to the business community.
“We want to make procedures easy to invite more investments,” the minister said while chairing a second meeting of the Steering Committee on Pakistan Regulatory Modernization Initiative held at the Ministry of Commerce to review the progress and discuss a way forward.
Speaking on the occasion, Advisor to the PM on Institutional Reforms and Austerity Ishrat Hussain said the aim of the meeting was to identify difficulties in the areas related to business and hold dialogue to find solution.
Board of Investment Chairman Zubair Gillani said: “We need to gain the confidence of investors. The board is here to coordinate among the provinces to facilitate the process of creating business friendly environment.”
A representative of the Khyber Pukhtunkhawa government said the KP chief minister had held a meeting on January 7 to discuss easing of business procedures.
A committee had been formulated to see duplication and reduce number of taxes, he said, adding the KP government had also mapped the regulations and many other related issues.”
A Sindh government’s representative informed the participants that their meeting was held on 8th February which was aimed to develop simple, modernized and automated regulation system for businesses.
The representative of the Punjab government said their government had gone through the entire mapping of businesses in 2018 and added that in order to carry out a process of guillotine, the provinces needed to have steering committees as well.
The representative of Baluchistan government said the World Bank was helping in developing terms of reference. “Baluchistan will benefit from other provinces to expedite this process.”
During the meeting, the representative from Azad Jammu and Kashmir said their government had recently passed the Board of Investment Act and formed a unit through PC-1.
According to the representative of Gilgit Baltistan government, the GB government was working on a one window operation to facilitate the businesses. “For GSP plus status we have introduced some legislations as well,” he added
The first meeting in this regard was held on September 12, 2019 under the chairmanship of Razaq Dawood.
