Govt Must Take Swift Steps To Revive Economy: FWCCI President

Faisalabad Women Chamber of Commerce and Industry (FWCCI) President Qurrat-ul-Ain has demanded the government take immediate measures for revival of economy as "women-owned small and medium enterprises are facing 90 per cent production and sale loss due to the lockdown, imposed in the wake of coronavirus pandemic in the country".

FAISALABAD, (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 7th May, 2020 ):Faisalabad Women Chamber of Commerce and Industry (FWCCI) President Qurrat-ul-Ain has demanded the government take immediate measures for revival of economy as "women-owned small and medium enterprises are facing 90 per cent production and sale loss due to the lockdown, imposed in the wake of coronavirus pandemic in the country".

In a statement issued here on Thursday, she also stressed the need for saving jobs of female workers.

Appreciating the government steps for stimulate the economy, she said adding that the statement of Minister Asad Umar was really alarming that one million SMEs would be closed down and 18 million people would lose their jobs.

Quoting the recent figure of World Bank, she said that 25 per cent women in Pakistan were part of our labour force which indicated that 4.2 million women would also become jobless. She said that the FWCCI was constantly approaching provincial and federal governments to take steps in accordance with the ground realities to expedite economic activities.

She said that as the government had now decided to relax the lockdown from May 9, 2020, it should also announce a special package particularly for female entrepreneurs so that they could restart their almost closed businesses. In this regard, she suggested that minimum possible functional standard operating procedures (SOPs) should be notified for women related enterprises.

Qurrat-ul-Ain suggested that salaries, wages and other expenses may also be reimbursed to the women enterprises according to their size and turnover of the businesses.

"Strict price control system should be introduced in addition to ensuring availability of raw materials for their businesses," she added.

She said that the government should not burden employers solely but allows 33 per cent by the employers to pay for the salary and wages of their employees and workers and remaining 66% may be arranged from Workers Welfare Fund and EOBI funds etc by the government.

She said that education sector, especially TVETA education institutes, were running the NAVTTC (Kamyab Jawan) and public sector development fund (PSDF) programs during pre-corona period. "These programs have been suspended as no funds are available for the teaching and management staff," she said and added that the owners of such private small and medium colleges won't be able to afford the expenses for long time as the students and parents are not paying fees and it has become difficult for them to manage rents, salaries and other expanses.

She said that PSDF and NAVTTC may be advised to release funds for the teaching and management staff that are solely dependent on their funds. She further demanded that online continuation of classes should also be allowed to TVET institutes to save the precious time of these young students instead of wasting their time in other activities. "International Training Models are already working on these concepts", she concluded.