Islamabad :  Sardar Yasir Ilyas Khan has taken over the charge as President, Ms. Fatma Azim Senior Vice President and Abdul Rehman Khan Vice President, Islamabad Chamber of Commerce and Industry for 2020-21 in a handing over/taking over ceremony held at ICCI.

Speaking at the occasion, Sardar Yasir Ilyas Khan said that the government should reduce taxes and duties on import of industrial machinery that would help in upgrading the domestic industry and producing value added products for boosting exports. He said that high GST has increased the cost of doing business and FBR should consider reducing sales tax to bring down production cost. He said that power tariffs were already high in Pakistan while the ECC has further increased gas tariff for commercial consumers, which would have a negative impact on the business sector. He urged that the government should reduce power tariffs to make our industry competitive in the international markets for exports.

Sardar Yasir Ilyas Khan said that Pakistan has great potential to enhance agriculture productivity and the government should focus on constructing more small and medium dams for water storage in order to boost the agriculture sector. He said that the tourism sector has a lot of potential to grow and the government should reduce duties on this sector and make conducive policies for attracting private sector investment in tourism infrastructure development. He said that the business community was the backbone of the economy and he would work for protection of respect and honor of businessmen. He said he would work on the slogan of “making Pakistan great again” and would take all possible initiatives to make progress towards that direction. He asked the members to keep sending him their input and proposals to address problems and bring further improvement in the working of the Chamber.

Mian Akram Farid, Chairman Founder Group congratulated the new Office Bearers of ICCI on taking over charge of their portfolios and hoped that they would play an effective role in resolving the key issues of the business community. He said that Founder Group would provide them all sorts of guidance and support in their endeavors for serving the cause of trade and industry.

Ms. Fatma Azim, Senior Vice President ICCI said that Pakistani women were very talented and she would work for economic empowerment of women through promotion of women entrepreneurship and women business startups. She said that she has a long association with ICCI and was well conversant with the issues of the business community, so measures would be taken to address their key issues and elevate the stature of the Chamber.

Abdul Rehman Khan, Vice President ICCI said that liaison with local markets would be further strengthened to know about the major issues of traders so that they could be taken up with the relevant departments for redress. He said that new team of ICCI would try its best to deliver up to the expectations of business community so that they could be facilitated in promoting business activities.