Venue: Conference Hall, CDPR

Date: 24th March 2017, Friday

Time: 3:00 pm to 4:30 pm

Consortium for Development Policy Research (CDPR) hosted its eighth Lahore Policy Exchange talk on “How local business can benefit from CPEC?”. CPEC is perhaps the most talked about economic issue in Pakistan today. Regardless of whether it is seen as a paradigm shift for the economy or merely a road for Chinese exporters, all agree that Pakistan will only benefit from CPEC investments if local firms are able to use them to their advantage. Making that happen will be the big policy challenge that determines whether CPEC really does transform Pakistan. To discuss this topic, the event featured three speakers: Hasaan Khawar, CDPR Fellow and regulatory expert, laid out the key policy issues surrounding CPEC and the private sector. Dastagir Ghulam, Chairman of the Executive Advisory Committee for CPEC projects in Khyber Pakhtunkwha (KP), discussed how KP’s private sector can benefit from CPEC. Mujtaba Piracha, Secretary Industries, Commerce and Investment Department, Government of Punjab discussed how Punjab’s private sector can benefit from CPEC. Naved Hamid, Director of Center of Research in Economics and Business (CREB) moderated the discussion. Policy exchange dialogue took place at the end, when the question and answer session took place amongst the audience and the presenters.