A number of meetings between the business community and the government have been postponed due to prolonged protests by Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf and Pakistan Awami Tehreek in the federal capital.
An official in a multinational drug company said the government used to hold three monthly meetings of the pricing and licencing committees and the registration board, and such meetings could not be held due to the prevailing conditions.
“The pharma industry has not received any intimation so far from the government as to when these meetings will be held,” an executive of a pharma company said.
Sources said many manufacturers of life-saving drugs faced problems in Lahore when their trucks were stopped from proceeding to Islamabad and other cities. These trucks were released after three days, but manufacturers were apprehensive of the ill-effects of the delay on quality of the drugs. They said those medicines would be supplied to the market after running quality verification tests.
The 20th meeting of Auto Industry Development Committee (AIDC), which was scheduled to be held on Aug 18 at the offices of Engineering Development Board in Islamabad was postponed. It was rescheduled for Aug 21, but has again been delayed.