External funding process needs more encouragement, incentives.

Byline: Khalil Ahmed

Interview of Mr. Zia ul Mustafa, President ICMA Pakistan

Profile:

Zia ul Mustafa is currently the President of the Institute of Cost and Management Accountants of Pakistan (ICMA Pakistan) for a three-year term i.e. 2021-2023. He also served as the President of the South Asian Federation of Accountants (SAFA) in the year 2020 and held the Chairmanship of the SAFA Committee on Governmental and Public Sector Enterprises Accounting. SAFA is a regional forum representing over 3,75,000 accountants having membership of the national chartered accountancy and cost and management accountancy institutions in the South Asian countries namely Bangladesh, India, Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka, Afghanistan. Zia ul Mustafa also served as an elected Board Member of Pakistan Institute of Corporate Governance (PICG) for three years and as a Member Board of Directors of Zarai Taraqiati Bank Limited with the additional responsibility of Chairman, Board Audit Committee for three years. He has professional exposure of almost twenty-five years in corporate and public sector organizations i.e. manufacturing, construction, services, banking, and education. Presently; he is serving as the CFO and Business Administrator of Pakistan Expo Centers Private Limited, a corporate entity owned by the Government of Pakistan with a mandate to develop, operate and promote Expo Centers in major cities of Pakistan. Earlier, he worked with Descon Engineering Ltd. as Financial Controller of the Mangla Dam Raising Project and Mirani Dam Project and with Rustam Group of Industries as GM Finance and Administration.

PAKISTAN and GULF ECONOMIST had an exclusive conversation with Mr Zia ul Mustafa vis-a-vis home remittances, depreciation of the Pak rupee, impact of rupee-dollar parity on exports, the bottom line of the national and multinational organizations in the wake of dollar appreciation etc. Following are the excerpts of the conversation:

Remittances received from the overseas workers are considered a significant and stable source of external funding for most of the developing countries, including Pakistan. Home remittances are an engine for the socio-economic growth of a country. It stimulates economic prosperity by raising national savings, domestic consumption and income level of poor people which collectively help to reduce the poverty. It is reassuring that remittances received from the overseas Pakistanis are rising persistently and becoming a...