A year after the launch of the Asaan Karobar Programme to promote ease of doing business (EODB) in the country, the Board of Investment (BOI) has completed the draft bill of the programme to be presented in the parliament by the end of this month.
In March 2022, President Arif Alvi formally launched the Asaan Karobar Programme as part of the Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) Development Policy to lessen the compliance burden on businesses, particularly for SMEs.
Former Prime Minister of Pakistan Imran Khan had desired BOI to undertake regulatory reforms and guillotine procedures in line with international best practices to identify regulatory obstacles at all three tiers of government, i.e. federal, provincial and local government, for the elimination, simplification and modernisation of regulations.
Following the former chief executive’s wish, BOI was in consultation with different stakeholders to reform and remove technical and legal bottlenecks in doing business in the country.
Officials privy to the matter state that by the end of January of this year, at least four rounds of regulatory reforms and guillotine have been launched and around 270 reform proposals have been taken up with federal and provincial departments. More so, 137 reforms have already been implemented as well.
During a consultative workshop held on Monday, the concerned stakeholders have agreed to initiate the legislative process to introduce the Asaan Karobar Bill in the parliament at the earliest.
