Ease of doing business: Govt vows to enhance ranking to 80th in two years

BoI chief says new regulations, like bankruptcy law, will be introduced .

Board of Investment (BoI) Chairman Dr Miftah Ismail, who took over earlier this month, has stressed that his first priority is to improve Pakistan’s ranking in the Ease of Doing Business – an index created by the World Bank to gauge the business friendly atmosphere in 189 countries of the world.

Sharing his plans while speaking to industrialists of the SITE Association of Industry – one of the oldest industrial areas – here on Monday, Ismail vowed to bring Pakistan’s current 133rd ranking on the index to 80th in the next two years by introducing new laws like bankruptcy law.



He believed that the new regulations would support the industries that were making efforts to revive sick units across the country.

Quoting the Planning Commission, he said the country must achieve at least 6% annual growth in order to provide enough jobs to its youth. He described as good and strong the large-scale manufacturing sector’s growth of over 5.23% in July-November 2013 and hoped this would continue with the rise in electricity production in coming months.

Gas distribution

Turning to energy issues, Ismail reminded the industrialists that the country was experiencing an acute gas shortage and said the government would try to distribute the scarce commodity to all sectors as prudently as possible.

“We are doing everything possible to increase gas production,” he said, “Meanwhile, we will try to distribute this scarce commodity to all sectors to use it most efficiently.”

Gas from new fields was coming into the system but the problem was that old fields were depleting too fast and gas demand was also rising like never before, he added.

Ismail, who is also the Chairman of Sui Southern Gas Company (SSGC), committed to the businessmen that the main gas pipeline in SITE industrial area would be replaced by March 1. However, he made it clear that SSGC would not give additional gas to the industries or any other sector because of the shortage.

Subsidies

Speaking about electricity generation, Ismail said work had already been started on coal power plants at Gadani, Balochistan but the country would benefit only when these giant plants got coal from Thar.

To make this happen, Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif is coming to Sindh to launch Thar coal projects this week in a bid to speed up coal mining in the country.

Without mincing words, Ismail declared that further subsidies would not be given on anything including electricity and industrial water. “We have cut down subsidies and will continue to do so, especially where rich are getting them,” he said.

Replying to the request of businessmen, he assured them that Interior Minister Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan would soon come to Karachi to take their input on the current operation and growing street crimes in the city.

Apart from a long list of complaints, the businessmen had some feel-good things for the BoI chief, who had played a role in crafting the PML-N manifesto before last year’s general elections.

They praised the government for winning the European Union’s GSP Plus status and its policy of fast-track privatisation of public sector enterprises (PSEs).

“We believe the government will improve the economic situation as soon as it can by saving Rs500 billion that it is spending on PSEs,” said Zubair Motiwala, a renowned businessman.

Published in The Express Tribune, January 28^th, 2014.

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