KP Caretaker Minister for Industries, Commerce and Technical Education, Adnan Jalil has termed restructuring capabilities and streamlining of the public sector processes as keys to ease of doing business in the province.
He was speaking at the Meeting of the National Network of Economic Thinktanks-Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Chapter organized by the Sustainable Development Policy Institute (SDPI) here the other day, said a press release issued.
He informed that restricting human resources in TEVTA had so far resulted in a saving of Rs 2.6 million monthly. He said that financial and power constraints faced by the caretaker government would prevent the delivery of relief to the business community.
Jalil said that the business community was struggling to survive in an unbalanced environment and stressed the need to streamline the procedure and processes to avoid delays.
Dr Vaqar Ahmed, Joint Executive Director, SDPI in his welcome remarks said that Khyber Pakhtunkhwa’s southern cluster had immense untapped economic potential. He said that such deliberative sessions before the announcement of the budget would help in articulating policy advice for the government to reflect on for strengthening trade and economic development.
Ahad Nazir, Head of the Center for Private Sector Engagement while sharing the preliminary findings of a survey conducted by SDPI in KP said that difficulty in graduation for firms was observed which is hindering increasing in firms to become exporters.
Poor coordination between government departments results in duplication of policy burden and lack of inclusive industry data results in policies that are generalized and not tailored based on different demographics, he added.
Nazir informed that SDPI would serve as the Secretariat for the National Network of Economic Thinktanks. He reiterated SDPI’s interest in bridging the policy gaps identified by government departments, updating private sector policy developments, reviewing policy documents and bridging gaps between academia and industry for strengthening research environments to meet the industry demand.
Iqbal Sarwar, Director of Business Facilitation, KP-BoIT informed that a mapping activity resulted in identification of 170 regulations for businesses in KP that need to be simplified and thirty regulations so far had been simplified or removed.—APP
