Opening of Torkham border: Business community hails PM’s decision

PESHAWAR: The business community of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa has welcomed the decision of Prime Minister Imran Khan who has issued directives for the round-the-clock opening of the Torkham border crossing.

Sarhad Chamber of Commerce and Industry (SCCI) President Faiz Muhammad Faizi, while hailing the prime minister’s decision, termed the initiative as a good step that would augur well for the commercial and industrial development of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and promotion of exports of the country. In a statement issued here on Tuesday, the SCCI president also demanded the commercial banks of the country to open letter of credit on easy terms with the objective of increasing export to Afghanistan.

He expressed these views while speaking at a seminar jointly organised by the SCCI and State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) for sensitisation of businessmen about small and medium enterprises.

Faiz Ahmad Faizi also welcomed the launching of schemes by SBP for the provision of loans to the SME sector for 10 to 12 years at a mark-up rate of five to six percent.

The SCCI president expressed satisfaction over schemes launched by SBP for the introduction of SME sector and laid stress on issuing directives to commercial banks to make the maximum landing in KP so that economy of the province could stabilize.

He also hailed provision of loans to SME sector within a period of two weeks or 20 days.

Faiz Ahmad Faizi suggested for making commercial banks bound to provide maximum loans to business men of the country. The SCCI president laid stress on the establishment of banks in a pattern of Industrial Development Bank and PICIC. SBP Executive Director Shaukat Zaman, while speaking at the seminar, highlighted the role of SME sector in the economic development of the country. He also apprised participants of the seminar about different schemes launched by SBP for the promotion of SME sector in the country.

Workshop: A workshop was arranged for postgraduate residents to learn the techniques for searching literature, research paper and articles for writing dissertations.

Prof Dr Zahid Askar, Prof Dr Ayaz Khan, Associate Prof Dr Awal Hakeem and Assistant Prof Dr Siraj, faculty members and postgraduate of Orthopedic Department attended it. The participants were given insight about refining research questions and objectives along with group work, study design, writing the objectives, abstracts and methods section of a manuscript to search literature and writing the results sections.

The workshop was conducted on the request of Chairman Orthopaedic Department Prof Dr Zahid Askar. Prize distribution was also held in the end. Muhammad Ahmad, the speaker of the training, belonged to a pharmaceutical company from Lahore.