ISLAMABAD, SEP 20 /DNA/  – Muhammad Shakeel Munir, President, Islamabad Chamber of Commerce & Industry (ICCI) said that the business community was facing the problems of unnecessary delay in opening Letters of Credit (LCs) for import of raw materials and called upon the government to address this issue on urgent basis for facilitating the growth of business activities. He said this while addressing a dinner reception hosted by Muhammad Naveed Malik, former Senior Vice President, ICCI.

Muhammad Shakeel Munir said that due to delay in opening of LCs, many industries including food, pharmaceuticals, steel, automobiles, telecom, home appliances etc. were facing the shortage of raw material for their manufacturing activities and if this issue was not addressed forthwith, it would badly affect the production activities and further hurt the already struggling economy. He said that the government had announced to lift ban on imports, but the business community was still facing a delay in opening of LCs for many important items including machinery and equipment. This situation has created a lot of concerns in the SMEs and large scale manufacturing industry, therefore, he appealed to the finance minister to take urgent notice of this matter and intervene to address this issue of utmost importance for the business community.

Jamshaid Akhtar Sheikh Senior Vice President, Muhammad Faheem Khan Vice President ICCI, Khalid Iqbal Malik, Mian Akram Farid, Muhammad Ejaz Abbasi, Sheikh Amir Waheed, Nasir Qureshi, Sardar Yasir Ilyas Khan, Muhammad Naveed Malik, Ahsan Zafar Bakhtawari, Sardar Tahir Mehmood, Engr. Azhar ul Islam Zafar, Ch. Masood, Malik Najeeb, Ashfaq Chatha, Saeed Khokhar, Mustafeez Abbasi and others also spoke at the occasion and said that many industries in Pakistan relied on imported materials, but production activities were badly suffering due to delay in opening of LCs for imports. They emphasized that the Ministry of Finance and the State Bank of Pakistan should take urgent measures to address this issue of vital importance to save the production activities from further problems.