Maryam Nawaz ties industrial growth to job creation at investment review

Punjab Chief Minister Maryam Nawaz Sharif has said industrialisation is the fastest route to development and that promoting local industry is essential for creating jobs, speaking at a meeting in Lahore with a federal investment facilitation committee led by the Prime Minister's Adviser on Industries and Production, Haroon Akhtar.

Prime Minister's Coordinator Ehsan Afzal Khan also attended, according to Daily Times, which reported the meeting alongside the Associated Press of Pakistan. The committee reviewed the reform agenda for ease of doing business and discussed measures to promote investment and industrial development in Punjab.

The meeting was briefed that interest-free loans worth Rs70 billion had been provided under the Asaan Karobar Finance Scheme, and that 112,000 businesses had received financial assistance under it, Daily Times reported. It was also told that the E-Biz platform now runs a single-window, one-portal system offering 437 services from 28 departments, with 210,031 applications being processed through it. Documentation requirements had been cut back to a few essential documents, and 4.5 million digital services had been delivered to citizens under the Maryam Ki Dastak initiative.

Maryam said Punjab had revamped skill development under a unified system and that sector-specific training programmes were producing encouraging results. She said the provincial government was expanding the tax net and setting records in recovering outstanding dues without imposing new taxes, and that business facilitation measures were being introduced in line with ground realities. Cluster mapping across Punjab had been completed, she added, and the government planned to establish hubs for cottage industries. She also said her government was pursuing a policy to promote livestock farming and increase meat exports, and offered technical assistance to the federal government for digitalisation to help businesses.

Haroon Akhtar appreciated Punjab's initiatives for promoting business and investment, saying the province had already implemented several measures recommended by the committee for ease of doing business and industrial growth. He said considerable effort had been made to attract investment and facilitate industrialists, and that the work of the chief minister and her team was reflected in every provincial project.

Separately, the chief minister approved the Last-Mile Water Supply Project to provide clean drinking water to more areas of Rawalpindi, Chakwal and Rajanpur, at a meeting of the Punjab Saaf Pani Authority in Lahore on Sunday. Daily Times reported that the meeting reviewed the installation of 5,734 water filtration plants across Punjab and set June 2027 as the deadline for completing them, with assistant commissioners tasked to monitor their operation and maintenance.