LAHORE: Pakistan-China Joint Chamber of Commerce and Industry (PCJCCI) Thursday said that the government and private sector are making efforts to promote digital technology for businesses amid coronavirus pandemic.
President PCJCCI Zark Khan, SVP Moazzam Ghurki and Secretary General Salahuddin Hanif along with other members while exchanging views on continuing trade and industry under SOPs set by the WHO, termed the trade of sacrificing animals a big threat of expanding the pandemic.
Zark Khan called for setting up online cattle market on this Eid-ul-Adha to avoid huge physical gatherings of people in the prevailing pandemic of COVID-19. He said the government and private sector are making efforts to promote digital technology for business under the crucial days of corona pandemic.
“We should learn from the dangerous situation that occurred at Eid-ul-Fitr due to public rush in softened lock down that worsened the condition of COVID-19,” he said and called for being more meticulous while taking precautionary measures for Eid-ul-Adha. He emphasized that the government should consider a virtual world for buying and selling cattle for avoiding direct physical or social contact between the people.
He informed that every year Pakistanis are projected to spend Rs150 billion on Eid-ul-Adha, for sacrificing an estimated 2.5 million cows, bulls and buffaloes — with each animal having an average price tag of Rs 60,000.
Moazzam Ghurki said, “We are currently suffering from a global pandemic, Eid-al-Aldha is an important festival and we can’t stop people from celebrating it and buying animals.” So the government should provide an online facility for this purpose and roadside or outdoor cattle markets should be banned for the time. “COVID-19 is a dreadful disease and we are still working with the research about its transmission in the animals,” he said.
Salahuddin Hanif commented that saving human lives is the basic responsibility of the government, which requires exclusive measures to avoid public gatherings on roadside and parks for cattle trading on this Eid . Introducing a digital solution to this problem should be ensured, he said adding that such initiative if taken would also help in monitoring the undue price hike of the animals.
