October 16, 2020

Chairman Punjab Board of Investment & Trade (PBIT) Sardar Tanveer Ilyas Khan has said that government is seriously persuing economic revival through enabling policies.

Prime Minister Imran Khan is triggering economic activity through different long-term and near-term initiatives while he has actively engaged the private sector for improved input of their problems, he said.

Chairman PBIT Sardar Tanveer Ilyas Khan said that economy has started showing signs of improvement despite challenges while the private sector is now more hopeful about an early turnaround.

Talking to Convener FPCCI Central Standing Committee on Insurance said Dr. Murtaza Mughal he said that coronavirus and other issues have severely damaged the economy which will not be offset by conventional tools like tweaking interest rates or calibrating tax slabs therefore the PM has started broad-based consultations with all the stakeholders.

He said that a new SME policy and structural reforms that will make the economy more dynamic are on the cards which will crowd in private investment and boost exports.

The prudent strategy adopted by the government helped to put the country’s economy back on a growth trajectory as indicated by many economic indicators. Many sectors including industrial sector, which was badly affected due to coronavirus, rebounded and witnessed a considerable positive growth as the Large Scale Manufacturing Industries, he said.

Khan said that on the external front, the country’s exports also witnessed positive growth during September and grew by 6 per cent on a year-on-year basis as compared to the same month of last year and the exports are expected to grow further during the month of October.

The Pakistani rupee is also getting strengthened against the US dollar due to the reduction of oil prices in the international market besides increasing inflow of remittances by the overseas Pakistanis, he said.

He said that Prime Minister Imran Khan and Chief Minister Punjab Sardar Usman Ahmad Khan Buzdar are very concerned about the economy and they are trying best to bring the price of food items.

Wheat and sugar is being imported, import of tomatoes are been started from Iran to bring prices down and a number of schemes are on cards to facilitate the growers.

Prime Minister Imran Khan has recently called for medium and long term projects for the improvement of the agriculture sector, increase in production and modernisation of the sector for improved food security which is the top priority of the government.

The prime minister wants accurate, authoritative and reliable data on production estimates of various commodities to expedite the process of activating National Food Security Dashboard in the Ministry of Food Security with the assistance of all the provincial governments and departments concerned.

Reforms in the agriculture sector, especially measures to increase agricultural production and measures to address food security challenges is on the top of his agenda and he wants a more robust and integrated system of coordination among all stakeholders, including research institutes, universities and related institutions.

At the occasion Dr Murtaza Mughal congratulated Sardar Tanveer Ilyas Khan on his appointment as special assistant to CM Punjab on the affairs related to business, investment and trade.

He said that Khan is not only a top government official and a leading businessman but also a noted philanthropist and leader of the Mughal community.

Dr. Mughal said that country needs export competitiveness more than any other thing for which no stone should be left unturned.

ISLAMABAD, Oct. 15  : The recently-completed phase-I of the Swat Motorway has diverted the bulk of traffic from the existing Swat-Peshawar highway, the lone artery connecting the scenic north-western areas of Pakistan’s KP province with Islamabad-Peshawar Motorway (M1), says a report published by Gwadar Pro on Thursday.

This put an end to the traffic mess on the road passing through the most populous region of the province, this scribe observed during a visit to Mardan, Malakand and Dir districts.

The traditional 4-lane Swat-Peshawar highway passes through Charsadda/Nowshera, Mardan, Malakand and Dir districts. These districts are densely populated and during the past decades, scores of towns and cities have grown on both sides of this road.

One of the first two Special Economic Zones under CPEC, the Rashakai SEZ, also falls in this belt.

According to the report, a 60-km stretch of the road from Rashakai to Dargai remained blocked for hours in the past due to heavy traffic load. Now with the dramatic drop in vehicular count, traffic movement on this highway has smoothened and the graph of fatal accidents has declined.

In a developing country like Pakistan, very few projects have such large-scale and visible impact like that of the Swat expressway.

For decades, for people of north-eastern parts of KP, taking this road to travel to Peshawar or Islamabad was a nightmare, especially when there was no alternate route, and the haphazard traffic was a big source of road accidents that occurred frequently.

Mohsin Kamal, a resident of Shergarh Town of Mardan, narrated that people worried about their loved ones commuting on this road due to the higher accident ratio. All educational institutions and business centers are located along this road, so it was a constant source of insecurity among the people here, he said.

Saifullah, a resident of Timergara, a major city of Dir district, said that earlier it had to be a thorny journey to Mardan where he has to travel frequently due to business and family matters. The road is now safer with lesser traffic burden and traveling has become easier and smoother, he said. It also takes lesser time to reach your destination now, he said.

The project is not part of CPEC but had been initiated by the provincial government on a build, operate and transfer (BOT) basis to provide for an alternate route parallel to the main CPEC corridor passing through KP’s north-eastern Hazara region.

Phase-I of the expressway intersects M-1 in Swabi/Mardan districts and leads to Chakdara, wherefrom one road leads to Chitral and the other to Swat.

The expressway had been envisaged long ago to ease the traffic burden on the existing Swat-Peshawar road and avoid Malakand pass while traveling to north-western parts of KP province.

Nonetheless, the government was unable to take practical steps to develop the road until CPEC was launched in Pakistan. The then chief minister of KP, Pervez Khattak, lobbied extensively for the main CPEC route to pass from north-western KP, but the federal government instead opted for the north-eastern side of KP for the main corridor.

It was then that the KP government decided to develop an alternate route for China-bound traffic. Experts believe that once completed, the Swat expressway will become a route of choice for vehicles traveling to China for being shorter and passing through level terrain for the most part.

ISLAMABAD : A slight decrease in fuel prices across Pakistan is recommended in a summary forwarded by as the Oil and Gas Regulatory Authority (OGRA) to the Petroleum Division.

Sources said from October 16, a slight decrease is likely in petrol prices across Pakistan as the government may slash prices slightly.

The final prices of petroleum products, however, will be decided by the Ministry of Finance after taking into account Prime Minister Imran Khan’s recommendations.On September 30, the federal government had decided to continue the existing rates of petrol, light diesel and kerosene oil for the next 15 days.

According to a statement issued by the finance division, prices of the petroleum products in the country were kept unchanged for a fortnight, effective from October 1. However, Rs2.4 were decreased on high-speed diesel for the next 15 days.

The price of petrol was maintained at Rs 103.97 per litre, while kerosene oil, and light diesel remained at Rs65.29 and Rs62.86, respectively.