FAISALABAD: Full throttled economic activities during the post corona and robotic & artificial intelligence era will open new avenues of employment for the nations fully prepared to en-cash the emerging opportunities and we must prepare ourselves for it, said Engineer Ahmad Hasan, Chairman FCCI Standing Committee on CPEC and R&D.

Presenting the agenda during the first meeting of the committee, he explained in detail the vision of Research & Development (R & D), its mission, objectives, model and framework of R & D, industry-academia linkages with its benefits to the concerned sectors. He said that we must exploit social media and YouTube with project focus areas and it’s trickled down effects on the national economy and public at large in addition to the benefits of capacity building to the industrial sector. He said that this comprehensive agenda would be shared with Atif Munir Sheikh, President Faisalabad Chamber of Commerce & Industry (FCCI) and his views and salient features of the roadmap would also be incorporated in it.

He said that the ultimate objective of this agenda is to achieve micro-financial stability, increase tax revenue, improve governance, innovation and value addition, energy, agriculture and livestock, human resource, entrepreneurship, ease of doing business, protecting environment and above all to ensure sustained economic growth.

Vice Chairman Dr. Khurram Tariq said that instead of a hefty agenda, we must concentrate on one after another agenda point to maintain steady progress.  

Dr. Arif was of the opinion that the committee has to focus on local as well as national issues simultaneously with a focused approach towards energy, renewable energy, water treatment, industry academia linkages, capacity building, promoting liaison with regulatory bodies and improving the policy structure in consultation with the stakeholders.

Muhammad Amjad Khawaja underlined the need to improve the economic and financial approach of executive members and a tailor-made program could also be launched for them. In this connection a committee was constituted under the supervision of Dr. Arif and Dr. Habib Aslam Gaba to fine-tune the strategy for their training.

Engineer Ahmad Hassan said that US president Joe Biden has recently approved a 1.3 trillion-dollar budget for the protection of the environment and Pakistan must avail from it. He stressed the need to promote the green revolution through the development of renewable energy resources. He further said that predominantly Pakistan is an agrarian economy and must enhance our per acre yield with value addition to weed out rural poverty in addition to strengthen the national economy. —PR