Day: October 13, 2021

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Mattermost Launches New Project and Workflow Management Solutions for Developers

Open source collaboration platform delivers alternatives to tools like Slack, Trello, and Notion to help R&D teams improve productivity and accelerate digital operations

Palo Alto, Calif., Oct. 13, 2021 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — Mattermost, Inc. today announced several new additions to its open source project at KubeCon® + CloudNativeCon North America 2021, launching and integrating modern project and workflow management solutions into its popular developer collaboration platform. Built for technical teams, Mattermost now provides flexible alternatives to tools like Slack®, Trello®, and Notion® through a unified platform for increased collaboration and productivity across a wide range of software development processes — from sprint planning and release management to incident resolution and retrospectives.

With heightened awareness around the urgency for remote collaboration and modernization of enterprise processes, developers have been increasingly asked to circumvent fragile processes, talent shortages, and security risks to deliver performance, innovation, and digital operations at scale. The newest update to the core Mattermost® platform emphasizes the complexities of these staggering objectives and the need for dynamic solutions that empower R&D teams with autonomy, flexibility, and security.

The launch of Mattermost’s modern project and workflow management solutions also reflects the company’s evolution beyond secure messaging to enable team alignment and operational agility across sophisticated R&D use cases. Unlike general collaboration products, the Mattermost platform now allows developers to contribute directly to its solutions and customize their workspaces to adapt to their preferred team processes. Mattermost also provides teams with the option to deploy on-premise or in a secure cloud instance. This gives companies more control over their data and assists them in meeting stringent security and privacy compliance standards such as those found in HIPAA, FINRA, GDPR, country-specific data sovereignty, and other regulatory requirements.

“As organizations navigate the shift to always-on digital operations, teams that effectively align their people, tools, and processes across each stage of the development lifecycle are increasing their velocity, improving delivery and gaining a strategic advantage,” said Ian Tien, co-founder and CEO of Mattermost. “With developers reporting that nearly 40% of their workweek is wasted due to tool fragmentation, manual tasks, fragile workflows, and service-impacting incidents and outages, we see a huge opportunity to help every R&D team in the world improve their operations and productivity with collaboration solutions built specifically for the way they work.”

Founded in 2016, Mattermost has powered over 800,000 developer workspaces worldwide and has a community of over 4,000 open source contributors who have updated the platform over 30,000 times since its initial release. Mattermost’s commercial offerings are used by over 800 organizations, including European Parliament, NASA, Nasdaq, Samsung, SAP, the United States Air Force, and Wealthfront.

“Mattermost has been unimaginably effective for our company and continues to exceed expectations with every new release,” said Daniel Gover, IT system administrator for Crossover Health. “The platform helps us ensure that we’re staying HIPAA-compliant while letting our clinicians collaborate efficiently and seamlessly.”

“Developer velocity is increasingly essential to driving digital operations and modernization across the enterprise,” said Paul Nashawaty, senior analyst for Enterprise Strategy Group. “Mattermost is helping to meet this requirement with a collaboration platform that reduces context switching and delivers visibility and control across the developer workflow and toolchain.”

This update to the Mattermost platform is now available to all users and features enhanced navigation and multiple tightly integrated collaboration tools, including:

Channels: The foundation of the Mattermost platform, Channels bring all of your team’s communication into one place, so you have complete visibility and control. Channels come with team messaging, conferencing, and file sharing features beyond general-purpose collaboration, including slash commands, code syntax highlighting, rich Markdown formatting, code snippets, and bot integrations.

Playbooks: Playbooks are prescribed workflows that streamline complex, recurring processes. Playbooks run side-by-side with Channels and make any structured process repeatable and predictable using checklists, triggers, automation, and tool integrations. Continuous improvement is built into each playbook with learnings and retrospectives.

Boards: Boards are Kanban-style task and project management solutions with clearly defined tasks, owners, checklists, and deadlines. Boards help teams increase transparency and keep all resources readily available, including documents, images, and links, and are used to help teams achieve project milestones and manage projects and tasks of any size.

Connections: Connections are integrations and extensions with leading developer tools, including GitHub®, Jenkins®, Circle CI®, GitLab®, Jira®, PagerDuty®, and ServiceNow®. Connections allow developers to turn any Channel into a CLI through built-in or custom commands to execute actions directly, such as posting to Channels, listening for new messages with incoming and outgoing webhooks. Developers can build Connections through custom apps, open APIs, plugins, and webhooks. The Mattermost App Framework allows developers to define custom interactive add-ons that support web, mobile, and desktop clients without changes. Apps can be written in any language, deployed on any HTTP server, or hosted as an AWS Lambda function.

Controls: Controls provide extensive data protection, information governance, eDiscovery, enterprise information archiving support, and identity/access management. Controls give administrators the ability to set granular permissions to control access to sensitive data and can be customized to meet your specific compliance requirements with fine-grained data retention, audit logs, the ability to programmatically archive and export records, and integration with Global Relay and Smarsh/Actiance for compliance, archiving, and analytics. Deployment options are available in on-prem or secure cloud environments to meet the strict requirements of GDPR, AICPA, CCPA, FINRA, HIPAA, and more.

To learn more about Mattermost’s developer collaboration platform, attendees can find the team at booth #S12 at KubeCon + CloudNativeCon North America 2021, or please visit the Mattermost Blog.

About Mattermost:

Mattermost is an open source platform for secure collaboration across the entire software development lifecycle. Hundreds of thousands of developers around the globe trust Mattermost to increase their productivity by bringing together team communication, task and project management, and workflow orchestration into a unified platform for agile software development.

Founded in 2016, Mattermost’s open source platform powers over 800,000 workspaces worldwide with the support of over 4,000 contributors from across the developer community. The company serves over 800 customers, including European Parliament, NASA, Nasdaq, Samsung, SAP, United States Air Force and Wealthfront, and is backed by world-class investors including Battery Ventures, Redpoint, S28 Capital, YC Continuity. To learn more, visit www.mattermost.com.

Mattermost and the Mattermost logo are registered trademarks of Mattermost, Inc. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners.

Jeff Benanto
Mattermost
5083619001
jeff.benanto@mattermost.com
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ہانگزو : چین میں ڈیجیٹل وسائل کے لیے ابھرتے ہوئے ذرائع کا مرکزاورعالمگیریت کی تعمیر نو میں ایک اہم کردار

ہانگزو، چین، 13اکتوبر، 2021 /ژن ہوا –ایشیا نیٹ/ –ابھرتے ہوئے چینی شہروں کی اکنامک انٹیلی جنس یونٹ کی حالیہ ایک فہرست میں،ہانگزو،شینزن،گوانگزو،شنگھائی اور ژوہائی سرفہرست رہے۔جنوب مشرقی چین کےان شہروں کے بارے میں اندازہ لگایا جارہاہے کہ کہ یہ اگلےپانچ سالوں میں زبردست معاشی نموکے امکانات کو بڑھائیں گے اوران کی  چین کی ٹیکنالوجی پر چلنے والی ترقی کے ماڈل  میں ڈھالنے میں اہم کردار ادا کرنےکی امید کی جارہی ہے۔

چین کی ڈیجیٹل معاشی ترقی میں ایک سرکردہ شہر ہانگزو،اس فہرست میں اول رہا۔تجزیہ کاروں کے مطابق،چین کا یہ مشرقی شہر ملک کے ڈیجیٹل وسائل کےلیے اہم پیداواری مرکز بن جائے گا اور عالمی معاشی نظام کی تعمیر نو کے ایک نئے سلسلے میں ایک اہم کردار اداکرےگا،جو کہ اشیا کی گزشتہ تجارت کی جانب سے لائی جانے والی گلوبلائزیشن  اور مالیاتی وسائل کی روانی اور اس کی وجہ سے وجود میں آنے والے شہروں کے ایک سلسلے سے مختلف ہے ۔

29ستمبرسے 4اکتوبر تک 17واں چائنا انٹرنیشنل کارٹون اینڈ اینیمیشن فیسٹیول ہانگزو،چین میں منعقد ہوا،جس نے دلکش کاسٹیوم میں ملبوس بہت سے شائقین کو متوجہ کیا ۔

رپورٹ کے مطابق،ہانگزو اور دیگر مشرقی ساحلی شہر مرکزی حکومت کی ممکنہ اختراعات اور 14ویں پنج سالہ منصوبے کے تحت پیداواری حکمت عملی سے مستنفید ہوں گے،کیونکہ اس نے باصلاحیت  مزدوروں کی ایک بڑی تعداد کو اپنی جانب کھینچاہے۔اسی اثنا میں،عالمی وبانے کاروباری  طور طریقوں میں تبدیلی لانے میں اہم  کردار اداکیاہے۔ای-کامرس میں دخول بڑھتاجارہا ہے کیونکہ صارفین  آن لائن خریداری کو زیادہ ترجیح دیتے ہیں اور کاروباروں نے مارکیٹنگ کے نئے طریقہ کار اپنائے ہیں،جیسے کہ لائیو اسٹریمنگ۔

ہانگزو کی بلدیاتی حکومت کے مطابق،ہانگزوکی چین کی ابھرتی مارکیٹ میں مقام اورمستقبل کی ترقی کے لیے  زبردست استعدادی قوت ڈیجیٹل صنعت کی بڑھتی ہوئی طاقت سے جدا نہیں ہوسکتیں۔اعدادوشمارکے مطابق رواں سال کے پہلے سہ ماہی میں،ہانگزو کی ڈیجیٹل معیشیت کی بنیادی صنعتوں نے 112بلین یوآن تک اضافہ کیا ہے جو،گزشتہ سال کے مقابلے میں28.1فیصد اضافہ ہے،اور دو سالوں میں 16.6فیصد تک ترقی کی جو کہ جی ڈ ی پی کا 26.7 فیصد ہے۔

ڈیجیٹل صنعت کو مسلسل بہتر بناتے ہوئے،ہانگزو نے صنعتی انٹرنیٹ، 5Gاور نئے دور کے دیگر انفراسٹرکچر کی ترقی کو ابھرتے ہوئے ڈیجیٹل ایپلیکیشن  کے ذریعے  تیز کردیاہے،جن میں سمارٹ ورک شاپ اور ڈیجیٹل فیکٹریز شامل ہیں۔

ہانگزو میں،فیکٹریوں کو جدید بنانے کے لیے کئی ڈیجیٹل کمپنیاں مختص کی گئی ہیں۔اس وقت،ہانگزو نے 400سے زائد ڈیجیٹل انجنئیرنگ سہولیات فراہمی کی کمپنیاں اکٹھی کی  ہیں،اور زجیانگ کی ڈیجیٹل تبدیلی استعدادی صلاحیت کو  تقریباً 70فیصد اور چین کو کلاوٗڈ کمپیوٹنگ کی صلاحیتوں  کا 70فیصدسہولیات  فراہم کررہاہے۔

زبردست ڈیجیٹل نظم وضبط اور بہتر ڈیجیٹل  زندگی کے ساتھ بڑھتی ہوئی ڈیجیٹل معیشیت  کے ساتھ،ہانگزو ،شہر جوہزاروں سالوں سے اپنی خوبصورتی کے حوالے سے مشہور ہے،اس شہر نے حالیہ وقتوں میں جدت کو  اپنا مخصوص نشان بنایاہے۔جدت ہانگزو کو چین میں نئے ڈیجیٹل وسائل کے لیے ایک پیداواری مرکز بناتی ہے،اورچین کی گلوبلائزیشن کا سامناکرتی معیشیت  کی تبدیلی کے ایک نئے سلسلے میں ایک اہم کردار اداکررہی ہے ،اور کئی شعبوں کی تعمیر نو کو جاری رکھے ہوئے ہے ،جن میں تجارت،تیاری،مصنوعی ذہانت کی ترقی اور ڈیزائن شامل ہیں۔

شہری صنعت میں بہتری اور تیزرفتار ترقی کو ٹیلنٹ کی امداد سےالگ نہیں کیاجاسکتا۔ٹیلنٹ کو اپنی جانب کھینچنے کے سلسلے میں،ہانگزو کے پاس کارکردگی کی ایک بہترین شیٹ ہے: لگاتار تین سالوں تک،مقامی اور غیر ملکی ٹیلنٹ اور انٹرنیٹ ٹیلنٹ کےیہاں آنے کی اوسط چین میں اول نمبر پر رہی ،اور لگاتار دس سالوں تک غیرملکی ٹیلنٹ کی نگاہوں میں پرکشش  چینی شہروں میں ایک رہاہے۔ہانگزو اتنا پرکشش کیوں ہے؟

’’شہر کا معیار بہتر بنانے کے لیے تمام کاموں کا مقصد ٹیلنٹ کو اپنی جانب متوجہ کرنا اور یہاں محفوظ رکھناہے‘‘۔یہ ہانگزو کے جواب کے ساتھ ساتھ اس کا عزم بھی ہے۔ہانگزو میں،اس بات پر اتفاق ہے کہ ٹیلنٹ سب سے اہم وسیلہ ہے،اور  شہر کی ٹیلنٹ کی اہم حکمت عملیاں بنانے سے پہلے ٹیلنٹ رکھنے والے افراد سے مشاورت کی جائے گی۔ٹیلنٹ رکھنے والے افراد سے متعلق مسائل جس میں مشاورت کی ضرورت ہو وہ بھی مشاورت  کےایجنڈ  ے میں شامل کی جائے گی اور اس کے حل کو ترجیحی بنیادوں پر شامل کیا جائے گا۔

40سے زائد ممالک کے 100سے زائد بین الاقوامی طلبا ہانگزو کے بین الاقوامی طلبا کے لیے پہلے کاروباری پارک میں داخل ہوئے ہیں۔رواں سال میں اب تک،وئی شنگ،ایک بھارتی طالب علم، نے اب تک بھارت میں چینی مصنوعات کی فروخت کے 400,000یوآن تک کے آرڈر حاصل کرلیے ہیں۔آنا لو،ایک برطانوی طالبہ،نے ایک تعلیمی مشارورتی کمپنی کی بنیادرکھی ،اور جیانگسو اور شنگھائی میں کئی یونیورسٹیوں میں بہترین غیر ملکی اساتذہ کو متعارف کروایا۔

ہانگزو کا ماحول ٹیلنٹ کے لیے بہتر ہوتاجارہاہے۔10ملین آبادی رکھنے والا یہ شہر تازہ ترقی کے مواقع فراہم کررہاہے،اور مقامی اور غیر ملکی ٹیلنٹ کو ہانگزو میں بسنے کے لیے ایک  بہترین ماحول اور ایک بہتر خود اعتماد طرز فکر فراہم کررہاہے۔

ایک برطانوی شہری ایلن ویلکنسن جو کئی سال تک ہانگزو میں رہے، ان کے مطابق،’’ہانگزو کے شہری فیشن کے لحاظ سے بہت زیادہ حساس ہیں۔وہ تہذیب اور روایات پر زور دیتے ہیں،ا ور ان کی زندگی انفرادیت اور عالمگیریت کا پیچھا کرنے سے بھری ہوئی ہے۔‘‘

ہانگزو کے شہریوں کی فیشن کے معاملے میں نایاب حساسیت کے بارے میں کہاجاسکتاہے کہ یہ  ثقافتی جین سے  اٹھی ہے جو ہانگزو کی تاریخ میں نقش ہے،جو ہزاروں سالوں کی تاریخ اورثقافت کی وجہ سے مشہور شہر ہے۔خوشحال ثقافت کے ساتھ آج کا ہانگزو،اینیمیشن،تقاریب اور مقابلے کا ایک شہر بن چکاہے۔دی چائناانٹرنیشنل اینیمیشن فیسٹیول،جو کہ 17سالوں سے منعقد کیاجارہاہے،چین اور یہاں تک کہ دنیا بھر کے اینیمیشن بنانے والوں کے لیے ایک میلہ کی طرح منعقد کیاجاتاہے۔کئی اینیمیشن بنانے والی کمپنیاں اور تخلیق کار ہانگزو میں اس وسیع شعبے میں حصہ لینے کے لیے ایک دوسرے سے سبقت لے رہے ہیں اور اینیمیشن کی طرز کو شہر کے ہر زاویے کے ساتھ جوڑنے کو فروغ دے رہے ہیںَ۔

15واں ہانگزو کلچرل اینڈ کرییٹیو انڈسٹری ایکسپو اس سال منعقد کیاجائے گا جو ہانگزو کی ثقافتی صنعت کی اندرونی طاقت کو مزید بڑھائے گا اور ہانگزو کے شہریوں کو عالمی تخلیقی ثقافت کے جانب سے دی جانے والی دعوت سے محظوظ ہونے کا موقع فراہم کرے گا۔14ایف آئی این اے ورلڈ سویمننگ چیمپین شپ نے 2018میں دنیا کو ہانگزو کی مجموعی قوت اور اس مقابلے کو منعقد کروانے کی اہلیت کا باور کرایا ہے۔ایف آئی این اے کا سابق صدر جولیو میگ لیون نے ایک بار کہاکہ انہوں نے ہانگزو میں ایک یادگار وقت گزارا،جو ایک پرجوش شہر ہے۔2022میں،ہانگزو 19ویں ایشیا گیمز کی میزبانی کرے گا،اور مزید کئی اعلی معیار کی تقاریب یہاں پر منعقد ہوں گی ،جو آہستہ آہستہ اس شہر کو کھیلوں کی خاصیت رکھنے والے شہر کے طور پر مشہورکریں گی۔

ہانگزو اپنے آپ کو ایک ایک ڈیجیٹل شہر بنانے کے لیے پر عزم ہے تا کہ ایک اختراعی شہر کی تعمیر میں ایک نئی تحریک پیدا کرے،ایک ایسا سرسبز شہر جو ماحولیاتی تہذیب کو نمایاں کرے،ایک فلاحی شہر جو مضبوط تاریخٰ اور ثقافتی خوبصورتی رکھتاہو،زجیانگ کی اعلی معیار کی ترقی کی ایک مثال کے طور پرایک خوشحال شہر  اور عمومی خوشحالی کا مظہرعلاقہ ہو،  اور بڑھتی ہوئی عالمگیریت کے ساتھ ایک کھُلا شہر ہو۔

ذریعہ : ہانگزو کی بلدیاتی حکومت

تصویر : http://asianetnews.net/view-attachment?attach-id=403502

 

 

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QAU VC Reveals the Real Reason Why University Cannot be Drug-Free

Vice-Chancellor Quaid-i-Azam University says that land grabbers are making it difficult to make university campuses drug-free.

700 acres of prime university land is being grabbed under the nose of the federal government and university can’t fight the grabbers.

He was briefing the National Assembly Standing Committee on Narcotics Control which met today at Islamabad under the Chairmanship of MNA Salahuddin Ayubi.

Briefing the committee on the ground situation, vice-chancellor QAU, Muhammad Ali, informed the committee that out of 23 km, the 11 km boundary wall has been constructed around the university however, there are some disputes regarding the land due to which the 700 acres land was occupied with unauthorized occupants.

This illegal occupation is a major cause of illegal activities near the university campus and the spread of narcotics among students. He said various police operations have been carried out with the help of the district administration but the illegal land occupants are a serious threat to the very existence of the peaceful campus of QAU.

He further emphasized that most of the kiosks selling fast food and general items to the students existing outside the premises of the university are involved in drug-related activities.

He also told that they have made Quaid-e-Azam University a smoke-free campus.

Besides the Federal Minister for Narcotics Control, MNAs Gul Dad Khan, Muhammad Iqbal Khan, Nusrat Wahid, Andleeb Abbas, Ch. Zulfiqar Ali Bhinder, Shahida Akhter Ali, Mohsin Dawar, and officials of the Ministry and its attached Departments were present in the meeting.

Source: Pro Pakistani

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SHC Orders Conversion of Fatima Jinnah’s Residence Into a Medical College

The Sindh High Court (SHC) ordered on Wednesday to convert Qasr-e-Fatima, the residence of Fatima Jinnah, into a medical college.

The directives came on a petition filed by Fatima Jinnah’s cousin, Hussain G. Walji that had been pending since 1971.

In its order, the SHC said that a trust should be set up to run the affairs of the medical college, which should also include separate hostels for male and female students.

As all parties agreed to the arrangement, the court also suggested some names to run the trust, including Dr. Abdul Bari of Indus Hospital, Sindh Institute of Urology and Transplantation’s (SIUT) Dr. Adib Rizvi, Justice (retd) Sarmad Jalal Osmany, and Justice (retd) Fahim Siddiqui, and directed authorities seek their consent in this regard.

During the previous hearing, the court had barred authorities from using the term ‘Mohatta Palace’ for Fatima Jinnah’s property. The court had suggested that the palace should now be called ‘Qasr-e-Fatima’.

The SHC had also directed authorities to submit a record of all the activities and income generated from the building during the last 30 years.

What Is Mohatta Palace And Who Owns It?

The Mohatta Palace was built in the 1920s and is now a declared heritage site. Designed by Agha Ahmed Hussain, the first known Muslim architect of the sub-continent, the palace was built for Shivratan Mohatta, a successful Marwari entrepreneur, according to well-known Karachi historian, Usman Damohi.

The beautiful palace housed the Ministry of Foreign Affairs after independence and later served as the residence of Mohtarma Fatima Jinnah.

After the death of Fatima Jinnah, the building went to her sister Shireen Jinnah, however, it was disputed by her other cousins, and was consequently sealed in 1971. However, in 1994, the property was turned into a museum under the Mohatta Palace Gallery Trust.

Source: Pro Pakistani

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Javed Miandad Reveals How Pakistan Can Beat India in T20 World Cup

Former Pakistan captain and head coach, Javed Miandad, has a piece of advice for Green Shirts ahead of their T20 World Cup encounter against their arch-rival India on 24 October at the Dubai International Cricket Stadium.

Speaking at a news channel, Miandad said that the team will have to play as a single unit to beat India and that the team’s reliance on a few individual players will only hurt the cause.

“The team needs to play with coordination. Each player needs to chip in with what they can because relying on 1 or 2 players will hurt Pakistan’s chances in the World Cup,” said Miandad.

Miandad pointed out that there is a chance that players who generally perform well will also do so during the crucial match. He said that consistency would be key to beat India.

He suggested the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) Chairman Ramiz Raja should focus on cricket and winning matches as it will boost Pakistan’s image in the cricket world.

Pakistan cricket team is currently preparing for the mega event at the National Cricket Academy (NCA) under the interim head coach Saqlain Mushtaq and the bowling consultant Vernon Philander.

The Men in Green will depart for the United Arab Emirates (UAE) on 15 October, where the T20 World Cup will be played from 17 October to 14 November.

Batting Consultant, Mathew Hayden, will join the Pakistan cricket team in the UAE ahead of their encounter with India on the 24th of this month.

Before that, Pakistan will play two warm-up matches against West Indies and South Africa on 18 and 20 October, respectively. Both matches will be broadcast live on PTV Sports.

Source: Pro Pakistani

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PSX Market Capitalization Plummets Below $50 Billion

Getting down unabatedly, the market capitalization of the Pakistan Stock Exchange (PSX) stands below $50 billion these days due to various macroeconomic factors that have been affected by domestic and international indicators.

This was stated by Managing Director, Farrukh H. Khan, while talking to a delegation of business journalists who met him from the platform of the Council of Economic and Energy Journalists (CEEJ).

He noted that the uncertain situation of neighboring Afghanistan, depreciation of Rupee against Dollar, and hike in international petroleum and commodities prices had badly shaken the confidence of local and foreign investors and had negatively impacted the trading of the equity market in the last few weeks.

The market capitalization of the PSX dropped to below $100 billion in recent times and unfortunately declined its listing in the emerging market index — a major blow to its standing among the global equity markets, he said. However, he added, PSX maintains its potential in terms of profitability when it is compared to the returns of the regional stock markets.

Farrukh mentioned that PSX’s average returns remained at 19 percent per annum in the last 20 years which was considered a good performance benchmark.

MD PSX suggested the equity traders should shift their investment pattern from short-term to long-term for the stability of the PSX and its trading scenario. The government should continue the exemption of tax credit for listed companies which will encourage private companies to be part of the equity market leading towards the speedy documentation of the country’s economy, he underlined. He said that newly listed companies of PSX could avail of the 25% tax exemption for the first two years and 10% for the next two years.

Farrukh said that the masses should be given awareness about equity trading in Pakistan, and the role of CEEJ and the media was vital in this regard.

Source: Pro Pakistani

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EU Holds Business Forum to Enhance Pakistani SMEs Access to European Markets

The European Union (EU) organized the EU Pakistan Business Forum for Small and Medium Enterprises (SME) on Wednesday as a part of its efforts to support Pakistani SMEs to access opportunities in the European Single Market and maximize the benefit of GSP+ scheme.

The event was attended by representatives of the government of Pakistan, EU member states, and local SMEs from four broad sectors – fans, auto parts, light engineering, rice, fruits, and dairy, sports, and surgical goods, hosiery, garments, value-added textile, and leather. The government representatives included CEO Small and Medium Enterprise Authority (SMEDA), Hashim Raza, and CEO Punjab Board of Investment and Trade (PBIT), Erfa Iqbal.

Speakers focused on the importance of SMEs and their role in value addition. The participants were informed how SMEs could benefit from the EU’s GSP+ scheme, providing two-thirds of tariff lines duty-free access to the EU market with the rest on preferential duties.

The EU-Pakistan Business Forum aimed to provide opportunities for both EU and Pakistani businesses to work together to become engines of development and partnership and contribute to enhancing bilateral trade.

It is pertinent to mention here that the Pakistani economy consists of almost 3.3 million SMEs. These consist of service providers, manufacturing units, and start-ups. SMEs make up over 30% of Pakistan’s GDP, account for approximately 25% of export generation, and provide over 70% industrial employment. While in the EU, Europe’s 25 million small and medium enterprises (SMEs) are the backbone of the EU economy. SMEs provide two out of three industrial jobs in the EU.

The Business Forum aimed to play a key role in bringing together SME’s from the EU and Pakistan to enhance their export orientation, collaboration in technology transfer, and promotion of businesses.

EU Ambassador to Pakistan, Androulla Kaminara, said,

In Lahore, we have managed to bring together SMEs working in diverse sectors from across Punjab. This diverse range of products, which are covered under GSP+, represent a huge opportunity for Pakistani SMEs to allow them to fully benefit from GSP+ boost trade and strengthen bilateraltrade for a prosperous Pakistan. Through this forum, we are trying to help create linkages between EU and Pakistani SMEs to understand their challenges and help overcome them – with a particular focus on technology transfer. With the strong involvement of the business community today and continued engagement with the Government, through the EU-Pakistan Business Forum we hope to develop initiatives, build capacity and provide technical assistance to support the SME development process in Pakistan. I remain confident that together we can expand the benefit of GSP+ boost trade and ultimately allow Pakistan to take full advantage of GSP+.

The final event of the First EU Pakistan Business Forum will be held in Karachi next month.

Source: Pro Pakistani

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Sarwar to hold meeting with Vice President of European Parliament in Brussels today

Punjab Governor Chaudhry Muhammad Sarwar, who is in Brussels will hold meeting with Vice President of European Parliament Fabio Massimo Castaldo on Wednesday to discuss extension in GSP Plus facility for Pakistan.

During the meeting, the Punjab Governor will also apprise him about Pakistan’s role in Afghan peace process and rise in killing of Kashmiri people by Indian forces in Indian Illegally Occupied Jammu and Kashmir.

In a statement, Chaudhry Muhammad Sarwar said that Pakistan has implemented all conditions set by European Union for extension GSP Plus status.

Source: Radio Pakistan