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The PM's Task Force on Poverty Alleviation & Employment Generation has
submitted its recommendations to the Prime Minister. Dr. Abdul Hafeez Shaikh
Federal Minister for Privatisation & Investment who is also Chairman of this
Task Force disclosed it during a national workshop on "Better Strategies and
Increased Profits" held jointly under the auspices of USAID Mission in
Pakistan and SAMEDA here today.
In his inaugural speech, Dr. Abdul Hafeez Shaikh urged upon the private sector
to rapidly expand job opportunities to reduce unemployment and poverty in
order to complement the substantial progress on macro economic reform agenda,
which has improved the business climate. There was need to improve
profitability, productivity and competitiveness to stimulate growth and
employment, particularly at the SME level, he said.
The Minister said that Pakistan has made substantial progress on its macro
economic reform agenda, which was evident from the 6 % Growth rate, increase
in FDI, the accelerating domestic investment and the historic response to its
Privatisation Program, which has yielded proceeds worth Rs.45 billion,
including the oversubscribed share offerings of OGDCL, SSGC, PIAC all being
positive indicators and a strong signal of confidence in Pakistan's
Macro-reforms.
Dr. Hafeez Shaikh further stated that Pakistani business was facing increased
competition in today's demanding global market and to succeed in this
environment individual firms would need to tap into upgraded industrial
structures. Upgrading Pakistani industries to compete in global markets
represents an opportunity to develop and implement a range of near term,
second-generation reforms. Unlike most reform efforts, however, the upgrading
of Pakistani industry must be led by better strategy as articulated by
self-selected business leaders and selected representatives from the public
sector who could enable this process of repositioning Pakistani industry for
higher growth, he added.
He appreciated the interest and assistance being provided by USAID in
collaboration with SMEDA to encourage the various industrial sectors to
develop growth strategies, which would lead to improve value added production
and increased profitability of Pakistani firms. He assured USAID of Ministry
of Privatisation & Investment's full cooperation to encourage better
coordination of the Government and provide an investment friendly and
pro-private sector policies to assist the private sector.
In response to a request from Government of Pakistan, USAID and SMEDA have
launched an initiative to encourage various industrial sectors to develop
growth strategies. The sectors represented in the national workshop included
agribusiness, fisheries, light engineering (electric fans), leather, gems and
jewelry, surgical equipment, sporting goods, IT, and marble and granite in the
mining sector. The workshop was the first phase of this activity, which
initiated a dialogue with the private sector to gauge interest in this
approach.