Traders seek permission for online business operations

A representative association of the retail sector has demanded that the government permit them to carry out their business online in view of the hardships faced by the retail outlets in the city due to the COVID-19 lockdown.

The demand to this effect was conveyed to Sindh Governor Imran Ismail on Monday as a delegation of the Pakistan Retail Business Council called on him at the Governor House. The association demanded that the retail businesses be granted permission to do online trade as being a norm these days in the United States, United Kingdom and other European countries.

The governor acknowledged that online businesses had been on the rise in the world due to the restrictions on regular business activities in the aftermath of the coronavirus outbreak. He said the retail industry should lessen the hardships of its employees and give them maximum facilities, and promised the delegation that the government would do whatever it could to facilitate the retail industry.

A member of the delegation informed the governor that the retail industry had been badly affected due to the continuing coronavirus lockdown. He said the industry sought help of the government to continue with its routine business activities, and added that the retail industry would be massively benefited, in case it was granted permission by the government to do online business.

The meeting also discussed strategies to revive business and economic activities. Meanwhile, the governor said that the daily-wage earners in the province had been badly affected due to the coronavirus lockdown and the government had been making efforts to provide such people with food rations.

The governor stated this as he participated via video link in a meeting chaired by President Dr Arif Alvi and attended by the governors of the four provinces, Gilgit-Baltistan and President of Azad Jammu & Kashmir.

The governor said on the occasion that a field isolation facility at the Karachi Expo Centre and a large quarantine centre in Sukkur were two major facilities in the province to house the patients of COVID-19. He said the patients of coronavirus in Sindh were being provided best treatment services and isolation facilities.