PESHAWAR: Reiterating the provincial government’s commitment to solving the business community’s problems, Chief Minister Ali Amin Khan Gandapur on Thursday stressed the importance of mutual trust and cooperation in moving the province forward.
In an interactive session with the business community of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa here, he acknowledged the role of the business community in adverse conditions and praised their resilience and bravery.
The session was aimed at discussing the challenges faced by the business community, gathering their inputs and suggestions for solutions, and consulting on ways to develop the province’s industrial sector on a sustainable basis.
“This province has been facing serious law and order challenges, which have severely affected all the sectors including the business community,” he added.The chief minister reiterated the provincial government’s commitment to solving the business community’s problems and announced that separate meetings would also be held with associations from different sectors to continue these discussions. He termed the unemployment as a major challenge and emphasised the crucial role of the private sector in addressing this challenge.
He said that his government was working on various initiatives and projects aimed at promoting small businesses, enabling skilled youth to start their own business, and developing the province’s productive sectors on modern lines. “Three different schemes for providing soft and interest free loans have been designed to execute these initiatives,” he added.
Gandapur maintained that special attention is being given to developing the province’s productive sectors, with the vision of making Khyber Pakhtunkhwa self-sufficient in industrial production.
“Efforts are underway to secure the province’s legitimate rights,” he said, and hoped that the business community would also extend their support to the provincial government in this struggle.
The chief minister made it clear that the provincial government had reduced and waived several provincial taxes, and whatever taxes are being collected, would be spent on the development of the industrial sector. He also announced that unutilised plots in different industrial zones would have their leases canceled and reallocated to industrialists who will utilize them.
“The same would be done in the mining sector, as both the sectors have a lot of potential, and the provincial government is committed to fully utilize it in the best interest
of the province and its people,” he added.