PRMI To Modernise Regulatory Regime: BoI Secretary

LAHORE, (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 27th Mar, 2023 ) :Board of Investment (BoI) Secretary Asad Rehman Gilani said on Monday that the board had launched the Pakistan Regulatory Modernisation Initiative (PRMI), which aims to modernise the regulatory regime and prevent regulators from becoming rigid.

He said that one of the ways to do that was to talk to all regulators to identify the regulations that had been in their rule books for 75 years but were completely obsolete, adding that only the applicable regulations should be entered in the BoI registry and the rest should be removed.

Talking to business community here at Lahore Chamber of Commerce and Industry (LCCI), he said that those laws under which notices were issued to businesses for minor infractions should be relaxed, and it would also eliminate the overload of notices.

Gilani said, "We talk about investment but we have to take care of domestic investment along with FDI (Foreign Direct Investment). Our own people have established industry by working hard and now we have to nurture the domestic industry." Regulations would be minimized and any new regulation would be finalized after study and consultation with the business community, he assured.

He mentioned that 70 different types of regulators were working in the country and it has become a regulatory regime that should not happen, asserting that under the PRMI, regulators would be trained and instructed on how to make regulations. He said that it had been noticed that there were 20 to 22 regulators in the IT sector alone. "We have created a registry, the purpose of which will be to give one application instead of going to different departments. The BoI will conduct clearance from all 22 departments. So far 10 regulators have expressed their willingness with us. After that we will move to other sectors like pharmaceuticals, steel, etc.," he added.

The BoI secretary said that 'Invest Pakistan' had been launched and 'we want the business community to sit with us for the Invest Pakistan programme and five year policies should be formulated. Business community should cooperate with us in the national interest.' LCCI President Kashif Anwar said that Lahore Chamber had always advocated for making the Rules & Regulations simple and business friendly and this would definitely help in ensuring Ease of Doing Business (EoDB).

Pakistan direly needed promotion of foreign and local investment.

According to Economic Survey of Pakistan, he mentioned, the ratio of total investment in the country was only 15 percent of Gross Domestic Product (GDP), while private investment in this was only 10 percent, while Net Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) was reduced to US $1.87 billion in fiscal year 2021-22 from US $ 2.6 billion in 2019-20, which is extremely low in terms of requirements of the economy. "We hope that BOI initiatives like Invest Pakistan will prove instrumental in improving this grim situation of investment," he added.

He said that local investment could not increase until the problems of local industries were solved, citing that local industry had to import a lot of raw materials, essential components and various machinery which were not available in the country and had to pay various duties on them, which needed to be eliminated. Besides reducing the rate of withholding tax for businesses; the issues of pending refunds and multiple audits should also be resolved.

He appealed that the number of these audits should be reduced. Taxpayers face penalties, surcharges and inquiries on these audits, withholding of registrants, penalties for late filing of statements/income tax returns and many other issues. The rate of penalties and surcharges should be reduced immediately for taxpayers.

Kashif Awar called for giving first priority to import substitution and then to increasing the exports, which we think could be possible only with industrialization and localization.

He said, the Board of Investment also needs to attract private investment to build new dams and reservoirs. "We should also expand the solar energy network as we still get less than five percent of our energy requirement from it. It will also help in bringing the imports to minimum level."He was of the view that industrialization could be geared up through Special Economic Zones (SEZs) provided these were considered as Special Export Zones, as it would make it easier for investors to invest in them.

"We think the government should immediately announce the Declaration Scheme so that the Undeclared Foreign Reserves can become part of our economy," he added.