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Dittu regrets lack of varsities, industry liaison

RECORDER REPORT

KARACHI: Fazal-ur-Rehman Dittu, President, Federation of Pakistan Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FPCCI), on Tuesday emphasised that "we should shed our complacent attitude with regard to the task of bringing about close cooperation among the universities, research institutes and industries, otherwise our country will end up as a market for the products of the developed countries and our industrial sector will be wiped out."

In his address at the regional workshop on identification of ways and means for strengthening effective university-industry interaction, he regretted that as far back as July 1977 FPCCI had made various recommendations to bridge the serious communication gap that existed between the universities, research institutes and industrial sector and to promote cooperation and collaboration among them for the economic development of the country, but these were put in cold storage, with the result that serious communication gap between and among the three sectors still persists. Rather, the gap has widened.

The address was read out by Engr. M.A. Jabbar, member of FPCCI's managing committee in the absence of Dittu, who was away in Islamabad attending important meetings on economy.

All recommendations which were made in 1977 by the FPCCI in a seminar on the subject were repeated as they stand good even today, he said. This was followed by a question-answer session where Engr Jabbar reminded the participants of the fact that due to fast approaching 'no-tariff imports' vide WTO market access rules, and conditions of IMF. There will be need to balance the trade by local developments which will have to be cheaper and competitive to encourage use of local products.

The power of knowledge should be used to bail out the country facing present crisis, he said. The engineering trade volume is more than 20 percent of world volume and, therefore, 'we should take advantage to follow the trend which is on the increase,' he added.