President woos businessmen

Opportunities in infrastructure projects highlighted.

KARACHI: President Asif Ali Zardari has invited the country’s leading business houses to join the government in investing in infrastructure projects on a build, own and operate basis and has offered to hold roadshows for major projects.

According to the president’s spokesperson, Farhatullah Babar, the president made this offer when members of the business community of Karachi representing the Federation of Pakistan Chambers of Commerce and Industry and the Karachi Stock Exchange called on him at Bilawal House.

The meeting was also attended by Sindh Chief Minister Syed Qaim Ali Shah, provincial ministers and senior federal and provincial officials.

Babar said the meeting was part of the interactive sessions the president has been holding regularly with private entrepreneurs in search of solutions to the country’s economic woes.

“Seldom before has the ingenuity of businessmen and entrepreneurs been challenged as seriously as it is now to find doable solutions to the economic problems,” said the president while urging the business community to propose innovative solutions.

He said he had already proposed the relocation of Chinese industry to Pakistan by setting up special China industrial towns in different parts of the country.

“Let us search for hidden opportunities in the debris of calamities,” said the president.

The president also asked the business community to take ownership of economic development policies that appear to them to be in the ultimate interest of the country.

He assured the business community that the government will also pursue the issue of access to markets and trade facilitation.

Babar said the president asked the Sindh government to encourage sunflower cultivation in the flood-affected districts and to launch an awareness drive to educate farmers about the benefits of sunflower cultivation following floods.

Published in The Express Tribune November 6^th, 2010.