Immediate-past President of Federation of Pakistan Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FPCCI), Abdul Rauf Alam has said that one year tenure of president of the apex body of the country is too short to perform the gigantic national and international level activities. During his visits and meetings with the presidents of other national chambers concerned, he observed that there is no example where tenure of presidency is one year.

The presidents of national chambers are elected for 2 or 3 years. While in case of Turkey, Afghanistan and Islamic Chamber the duration period of the body concerned is 3 years. The consistency and continuity in the activities and policies is not possible in one year tenure, he maintained. The interruption in the continuity and consistency has been damaging the performance of the organisation in extremely deteriorated manner.

He urged members of the apex body to pass a resolution for extending tenure of the president of the body, at least, 2 years. FPCCI is the apex representative of entire private sector (which covers 92 percent of the national economic activities or 70 percent if exclude agriculture).

However, this important organ of the national economy is completely paralysed since last several years and not supporting to national economic policies in changed global scenario. During the last two years, some important steps have been taken to enhance the role of FPCCI in the national economic policies.

For the effective role of FPCCI in the national economy the activities should remain continue with further progress and improvement. For this purpose, it is highly recommended that the incoming office-bearers should organise a briefing with the divisional heads in the first week of resuming their offices to get awareness about the on-going activities, future plans and the list of planned activities which has been submitted to the DGTO.

Such presentation/ briefing may be held at head office only or through video conferencing. After this briefing the president should allocate different areas/assignments to its team members/office-bearers. The co-ordinated and synchronised team work is required to maintain the integrity of institution - FPCCI. Other than office-bearers a team/council of very few high caliber persons who represent the business community should be systematized to look after the national level projects of extreme importance including 'CPEC', 'River Water and Energy Policy', 'ECO' and active/meaningful role of Pakistan in international economic organisations like Commonwealth, D8 and OIC/ ICCIA etc.

Copyright Business Recorder, 2017