ISLAMABAD, Mar 21 :Chief Executive Officer of National Productivity Organization (NPO) Muhammad Alamgir Chaudhry on Sunday said that
Pakistan‘s economy was lagging behind in major potential sectors owing to the absence of productivity and efficacy in system to achieve competitiveness.
“The local industrial sector is lacking the efficiency in its value chain through technology efficiency, productivity, innovation; managerial productivity and human labor productivity, which are the
major tools to enhance the productivity and efficiency in the local industrial sector,” chief of NPO, an attached department of Ministry of Industries and Production, told media.
Alamgir Chaudhry said that the main focus of his organization was to take initiatives and implement programs that inculcate productivity and quality culture in Pakistan to compete with other regional and global competitors.
Replying to a question, he said that country’s local public and private sector required more hard work to achieve the productivity and efficiency in the local industrial sector to attain the quality and
competitiveness and enhance exports.
He said, “We need to be efficient in our productivity tools including output increase, human resources, technology and process of different industrial value chains for achieving industrial growth to enhance our trade volume with the other world.
He informed that the Asian Productivity Organization (APO) ranked Pakistan in “average” category of labor market efficiency as compared to other regional and global competitors like China, India, Bangladesh and Malaysia.
He said Pakistan could follow the example of Malaysia – a country that
has improved its productivity through technology and efficiency in labor for industrial growth and economic development.
He said that technology is playing a major role to improve labor market efficiency and it was essential to equip the local industrial sector with modern technology and skilled labor.
He said that Gross Domestic Product (GDP) per hour work, labor productivity and utilization, labor compensation, multi factor productivity, unit labor cost, labor productivity forecast are also important to achieve the level of productivity at standard level.
The incumbent government has initiated major drive against corruption and inefficiency in the government institution under the leadership of Prime Minister Imran Khan as transparency and accountability had a main role in productivity of the institutions, he remarked.
He called for adopting a fearless approach by the institution’s heads
to introduce more efficient and productive systems in their respective
institutions for economic development.
The CEO said that NPO was about to launch a National Master Plan” on
the pattern of Singapore, which achieved the optimum level of productivity in the last decade and proved the most efficient public and private sector.
Through this plan, NPO has decided to start a cross sector survey for achieving the productivity and efficiency in the industries and institutions, he added.
He said that NPO has hired the foreign experts to find out major causes of inefficiency and non-productivity in local public and private sectors.
After the study of key indicators of the cross sectors survey, the NPO would be able to adopt the measure to take the productivity to the optimum level.
He informed that in the first phase, a countrywide productivity awareness drive would be launched engaging media and local education institutions to acquaint the new generation about the benefits of
productivity.
He said that Pakistan was the founder of Asian Productivity organization (APO) and was among the pioneer eight members but unfortunately the country was now facing the issue of inefficiency of system.
To a question on efficiency and productivity in energy sector, he said
that the sector played a vital role for economic development,
particularly the manufacturing sector. The NPO believes to attain maximum efficiency in proper utilization of existing energy with the help of suitable energy saving measures in the Small and Medium Enterprises (SME) sector that contributes a major portion towards
economic growth, he said.
Alamgir said that in today’s changing scenario, the continuous price hike of petroleum and the huge demand-supply gap of electricity, it has become imperative to look for alternate energy resources to ensure economic, effective and uninterrupted power supply to the
manufacturing units to enhance productivity.
He said that NPO has provided every kind of support to the local public and private sector to achieve a level of productivity for utilizing energy in industries and offering them energy audits too.
“We are fully coordinated with all major chamber of the country under the Umbrella of Federation Pakistan Chamber of Commerce and Industry
(FPCCI) Including the Islamabad Chamber of Commerce, Lahore Chamber of Commerce, Karachi Chamber of Commerce and Quetta etc including all
small chambers of different regions.
While sharing the cooperation of NPO with different industries, he said that his organization was fully committed to cooperate with the major sector of economy including agriculture, textile, leather, sports to enhance the efficiency of the value chains of these sectors for achieving productivity at optimum level.