FCCI Must Present Viable Suggestions For New Industrial Policy: NPO Chief

The Faisalabad Chamber of Commerce & Industry (FCCI) must present viable suggestions for new industrial policy in addition to submitting proper applications to get the facility of APO / NPO experts or conducting study missions to follow best practices in their relevant sectors, said Mr. Muhammad Alamgir Chaudhry, Chief Executive Officer, National Productivity Organization (NPO)

FAISALABAD, (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 1st Jan, 2024) The Faisalabad Chamber of Commerce & Industry (FCCI) must present viable suggestions for new industrial policy in addition to submitting proper applications to get the facility of APO / NPO experts or conducting study missions to follow best practices in their relevant sectors, said Mr. Muhammad Alamgir Chaudhry, Chief Executive Officer, National Productivity Organization (NPO).

In a meeting with Dr Sajjad Arshad, Acting President FCCI, he said that the NPO would provide printed material in soft form regarding facilities offered by the organization for dissemination among the industrial community.

He stressed the need for value addition in agriculture products and quoted his recent visit to Thailand which had excelled in dehydration of fruits and vegetables.

He said that Thailand was importing frozen strawberries to prepare its chips along with potato chips for export purposes. He said that NPO was organizing workshops regarding this facility at the provincial level for the information and awareness of local farmers. In this connection, a workshop could also be arranged at Faisalabad, he added.

He said that post-harvest losses had been estimated around 35-40% which could be controlled through value addition and developing the processing industry.

He said that the value of Rs.10 per kg of tomatoes could be enhanced to Rs.250 through value addition.

He also quoted the example of apricot of Hunza which was sold at Rs.200/- per kg. “Agha Khan Foundation provided them skills to dehydrate it”, he said and added that now they are exporting the dehydrated apricot at Rs.2,000/kg.

He also mentioned the exotic taste of "Chunsa" mango and said that a pilot project for mango pulp was established in Multan while now 7-8 such units were successfully working in this field. He said that the world demand of mango pulp is 200,000 tons per annum and out of it 80% was being provided by India alone.

Our mango is far better than Indian quality and it could be used for the manufacturing of many derivatives including jam and squash etc, he added.

He further said that production of electricity and controlling wastage of electricity were two separate issues and industrialists must avail the facility of NPO to check the wastage of electricity in their units.

Acting President FCCI Dr Sajjad Arshad underlined the need for value addition in agri products and said that increase in production without value addition may be detrimental to growers.

He said that we had a bumper maize crop but its price has come down to the lowest inflicting losses on the farming community. He said that through value addition we could save farmers from such losses.

He further said that Pakistan was exporting rice worth $ 2.5 bn which could be increased to $ 5 bn in 2025 and $ 10 bn in 2030.

He said that our textile exports had been trimmed from $ 14 bn to $ 11 bn while foreign remittances were also in declining mode. We failed to adopt new technologies only due to the inconsistency and uncertainty in government policies, he added.

About poultry, he said that the quality of our products was equal to the US only due to the non-interference of the government in this sector. He said that we should also work on the promotion of the dairy sector which offers multiple avenues of value addition and progress.

Dr Sajjad Arshad said we should focus on practical steps to enhance productivity instead of indulging ourselves in blame games by only identifying the problems.

Engineer Ahmad Hassan, Convener FCCI Standing Committee on R&D, said that FCCI has been making serious efforts to increase productivity but there was a dire need to declare wastage of energy as a criminal offense instead of leaving it on the choice of entrepreneurs.

Later, Dr. Sajjad Arshad presented an FCCI shield to Mr. Muhammad Alamgir Chaudhary, CEO NPO.