Islamabad (DNA) Dr. Arif Alvi, President of Pakistan has urged that the key issues of the business community should be addressed to facilitate them in business promotion that would help revive the economy. He said that weak decision making as a nation has deprived Pakistan from realizing its actual economic potential. He said this while addressing as Chief Guest the ICCI Vice Presidents Awards Ceremony held at Aiwan-e-Sadr, Islamabad.

Dr. Arif Alvi said that South Korea adopted the economic plan of Dr. Mehboob ul Haq and achieved fast economic growth, but Pakistan could not take benefit of it. He urged the business community to play a role for uplifting the deprived segments of the society and economic empowerment of women. He further said that 20.7 million children in Pakistan were out of school and emphasized that the business community should play a role to bring them to schools to make them productive citizens of the country. He said that investment in employable sectors of the economy would create more jobs and reduce poverty. He said that the private sector should provide jobs to the persons with disabilities to engage them in productive activities.

Speaking on the occasion, Ahsan Zafar Bakhtawari, President, Islamabad Chamber of Commerce & Industry said that the former Vice Presidents ICCI have rendered useful services for the business community and the purpose of organizing the award ceremony was to acknowledge their role. He stressed that the government should give awards to highest taxpayers to acknowledge their role. He said that instead of putting more burden on the existing taxpayers, the government should reduce high tax rates and expand taxbase to improve tax revenue. He said that the IT, export-oriented and tourism sectors should be given more focus to improve exports and tourism. He said that the President of Pakistan should play a role in the signing of a charter of economy by all the political parties to ensure consistency in economic policies. He said that ICCI was striving for a new industrial zone and expo center in Islamabad and stressed that the government should cooperate in materialization of these projects.

Engr. Azhar ul Islam Zafar, Vice President ICCI highlighted the issues of real estate sector and small traders. He stressed that the government should rationalize taxes on the real estate sector to save it from further troubles and provide easy loans on low markup to small traders. He said that the CDA should allocate a quota of plots for small traders to address their housing issues.

Dr. Arif Alvi, President of Pakistan distributed awards amongst the former Vice Presidents of ICCI on the occasion. The award recipients included Ahsan Zafar Bakhtawari, Engr. Azharul Islam Zafar, Yasir Sakhi Butt, Khalid Chaudhry, Faheem Khan, Abdul Rahman Khan, Saifur Rahman Khan, Iftikhar Anwar Sethi, Nisar Mirza. , Tahir Ayub, Sheikh Abdul Waheed, Ashfaq Chatta, Mirza Muhammad Ali, Shahid Zaman Shinwari, Syed Adil Anees, Ishtiaq Qureshi, Abdul Ghaffar Chaudhry, Sohail Rabbani, Musharraf Janjua, Hamid Miraj, Qazi Muhammad Ilyas, Rab Nawaz Malik, Chaudhry Gulrez Shahid, Ammad Bin Arif. , Ch. Zahid Rafiq, Malik Muhammad Shabbir, Muhammad Sakhi Butt (Late), Raza Khan (Late), Faiz Ahmad Faizi (Late), Muhammad Hussain and Khurshid Ahmad Qureshi.