Staff Reporter Islamabad
Federal Minister for Planning and Development Asad Umar has urged that the business community should ensure strict implementation of SOPs in markets and commercial areas in order to curb the outbreak of Covid-19 pandemic.
He said that the third wave of coronavirus has spread to a dangerous level and this situation demanded that business community should play a role for strict compliance of SOPs in business areas in order to control its further outbreak.
Speaking during an online meeting with President Islamabad Chamber of Commerce and Industry (ICCI) Sardar Yasir Ilyas Khan on Wednesday, he said that reduction in coronavirus cases would also help the government to consider easing restrictions on businesses.
Sardar Yasir Ilyas Khan apprised the federal minister of the consequences of reduced business hours and requested him to consider extending them during Ramadan.
He also called upon the business community and the general public to strictly follow the Covid-19 SOPs in order to avert any lockdown that would cause great losses to the business activities, render thousands of daily wagers and workers jobless, make people lives more miserable, give further rise inflation besides badly impacting the economy.
He said that the only way to curb the outbreak of Covid-19 pandemic was to follow the SOPs as there was no other better solution to cope with this deadly virus.
Sardar Yasir Ilyas Khan said that due to the previous lockdowns, our economy was reported to have suffered a loss of approximately Rs.2.5 trillion while around 3 million workers lost their jobs due to which thousands of families had to suffer great difficulties.
He further said due to Covid-19, Pakistan’s economy went into the negative growth for the first time last year since 1968 due to Covid-19 and the best way to save the economy and businesses from further loss was to adopt SOPs in our daily life.
