Punjab Governor Muhammad Rafique Rajwana Wednesday said that business community was the backbone of economy and it must be facilitated for sustainable economic growth of the country.

He was talking to Lahore Chamber of Commerce and Industry (LCCI) President Malik Tahir Javaid, Senior Vice President Khawaja Khawar Rashid and Executive Committee Members here at LCCI.

The Governor agreed with business community that prices of gas and other industrial inputs should be identical throughout the country.

He said that protests and sit-ins at Mall Road had become major issues for the business community, students, patients and the masses. Politicians and civil society should show responsibility and avoid disturbing trade and economic activities.

He said that recommendations regarding parking plazas had been forwarded to Punjab government.

Rafique Rajawan said that effective measures would also be put in place to remove mistrust between the taxpayers and the tax collector.

He assured the business community of resolving all their issues pertaining to energy prices, taxation, and parking problems around markets, and the protests/sit-in hampering the business activities.

LCCI President Malik Tahir Javaid said the government had largely overcome the energy shortfall as there was a considerable decline in electricity load-shedding, citing that it was an obvious result of concerted efforts from government side which was really praiseworthy.

He said that business community would be much relieved if per unit price of electricity was further brought down that would decrease cost of production and enhance Pakistani products’ competitiveness in international market.

While calling for uniformed rate for gas, he said that it was not fair to keep comparatively high price of gas for Punjab.

He said that law and order situation in Punjab in particular was better than other parts of country but there was still a lot of room for improvement.

Malik said that there were almost 1200 industrial plots available in industrial estates whereas more or less 40,000 industrial units were located on main roads of Lahore city.

Aftab Ahmed Vohra, Tahir Manzoor Chaudhry, Mian Muhammad Nawaz, Adeeb Iqbal Sheikh, Khamis Saeed Butt, Aurangzeb Chaudhry, Naeem Haneef, Nadeem Qureshi, Shahid Nazir Chaudhry, Bao Bashir, Nasira Taskeen, Mudassar Masood Chaudhry, Awais Saeed Piracha and others attended the meeting.