Staff Reporter
Islamabad
The Islamabad Chamber of Commerce and Industry (ICCI) on Monday urged the government to ease restrictions allow gradual opening of businesses as due to continuous lockdown, laborers were losing daily earnings and the financial problems of business community has increased.
The business community has showed concerns over the prolonged lockdown as it would cause permanent closure of millions of businesses and cripple the growth of overall economy.
President, Islamabad Chamber of Commerce and Industry, Muhammad Ahmed Waheed, said Federal Minister for Planning and Development, Asad Umar, stated that lockdown due to pandemic could cause closure of up to one million business institutions rendering 18 million people jobless and pushing up to 70 million people below the poverty line, which showed that gravity of situation caused by continuous lockdowns.
He urged that to start with, construction industry in capital should be opened forthwith to provide jobs to idle labor and spur business activities.
He said that if the current lockdown continued, many corporate companies would be at risk of default that would have long-term negative impact on the economy.
ICCI President said especially those factories should be opened immediately whose labor was residing in factory premises as in shutdown mode, industries were unable to keep bearing the burden of labor, employees and utility bills.
He said during a meeting with the Federal Minister for Planning and Federal Minister for Industries few days ago, they were apprised of the issues of business community, but still their concerns were not addressed.
He strongly demanded that after early finalization of SOPs, businesses and industries in Islamabad should be opened to provide jobs to labor and revive the crippled business activities.
