LAHORE   -   Special Assistant to Prime Minister (SAPM) on Industries and Production Tasneem Ahmed Qureshi said on Mon­day that the government was creating a favourable business and industrial environment in the country to restore confidence of local industrialists, trad­ers and investors. He chaired a meeting at the Small and Medium Enterprises Development Authority (SMEDA) head office, and was briefed by SAMEDA Chief Executive Officer Hashim Raza about authority’s working, achieve­ments and targets. Other senior SM­EDA officers were also present.

Tasneem Ahmed said, “We are try­ing to promote a business-friendly culture in the country with the help of all institutions related to business de­velopment including SAMEDA, as the government alone could not overcome serious problems like unemployment and poverty.” He promised that incen­tives and facilities would be provided for the investment, made by private sector to create employment opportu­nities especially through promotion of small and medium businesses. He said political stability was a prerequisite to economic development, asserting that in today’s world, only those nations were truly free which had stabilised their respective economies and devel­oped themselves on strong footing.

The SAPM said that the coalition government in Centre wanted to trans­form the country as a truly free and independent by laying greater focus on economic development, which was the only way to get rid of all social and economic problems. He hoped that vi­able economic and business policies of the government would help restore confidence of the local businessmen and industrialists, and they would start diverting their investment from real estate to industry and manufacturing sector. Tasneem Qureshi thanked the prime minister for appointing him as his special assistant on the proposal of PPP Chairman Bilawal Bhutto Zardari and entrusting him with the respon­sibility of industrial and commercial development. SAMEDA CEO Hashim Raza gave a detailed presentation to the SAPM about the authority’s servic­es, projects, working, achievement and targets. He mentioned that SMEDA had identified 11 business sectors having fast growth, export and employment potential, which included information technology, tourism, horticulture, con­struction, fisheries, dairy and livestock, light engineering, minerals, leather, lo­gistics and textiles. He said that SMEDA, under the Public Sector Development Programme (PSDP), had established 35 facilitation centres across the coun­try with a total cost of Rs 8 billion, add­ing that among these projects, Multan Pulp Plant and Sialkot Sports Industry Project had vastly been welcomed by the stakeholders. He said that Small and Medium Development Authority was going to organise a national-level “Busi­ness plan competition” the next month. At the competition, he said, the partici­pants with unique and innovative proj­ect ideas would not only be awarded Rs 100,000 cash prize each but also pro­vided with all necessary facilities for implementation of their projects