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Tuesday March 19, 2024

BoI to present business reform proposals next week

By Tariq Ahmed Saeedi
February 22, 2018

BHURBAN: A steering committee constituted to improve ease of doing business will present its recommendations to the Prime Minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi by next week, a senior official said on Wednesday

“Prime Minister has agreed to head the steering committee (that) is scheduled to meet on March 1,” Chairman Naeem Zamindar Board of Investment (BoI) said addressing a conference.”We have identified 62 initiatives to improve financial freedom in the country.”

Zamindar said there are more than 12 agencies, including excise and taxation, businesses need to deal with. “We want to build a centralised portal (website) to reduce procedural burdens.”

The steering committee comprises of chairmen Securities and Exchange Commission of Pakistan, Board of Investment, secretary planning and commission, private sector’s representatives and all the stakeholders.

Zamindar, who is minister of state, said Pakistan’s ranking slipped to 147 in the World Bank’s Doing Business global rankings. “Our objective is to improve the ranking to 50 within three years.”

The World Bank’s Doing Business flagship report uses 11 indicator sets to measure aspects of business regulation that matter for entrepreneurship.

The indicators include starting a business, dealing with construction permits, getting electricity, registering property, access to finance, protecting minority investors, paying taxes, trading across borders, enforcing contracts, resolving insolvency and labour market regulations.

BoI chairman said cost of doing business, convenience of business, capability of business and concession are the four important elements but “we usually focus concession and ignore the three points”.

The official said Pakistan has two assets: geographic location and expatriates. There are 90 million expatriates living in different countries and around one million are entrepreneurs. “I know 100 successful Pakistani businesses in Silicon Valley,” he said. “They want to come to Pakistan and invest in the country.”

Chinese ecommerce giant Ali Baba wants to start e-payment gateway in Pakistan, he said, referring to absence of international payment gateways in the country. “The absence of payment gateway is a bottleneck (in the growth of IT sector).”

Government is formulating ecommerce policy framework to promote online business in Pakistan, and is expected to increase to one billion dollars by 2020.

Chairman board said policies should be around financial freedom. He further said the country has a youth bulge and it needs at least nine percent growth a year to create employment opportunities.