ISLAMABAD, Dec 30: The Islamabad Chamber of Commerce and Industry (ICCI) stressed the need for establishing a national think tank with the government-business participation to drive the economy forward in 2011.

ICCI president Mahfooz Elahi while addressing a meeting of trade and industry proposed that in the coming year agriculture income should be taxed to widen the tax base.

Small size dams and available energy resources must be exploited to plug in the gap between supply and demand of electricity and gas, he added.

He called for bringing down the mark up rates, infrastructure development on modern lines for speedy transportation of goods and public-private integrated approach for the formulation of practical and result-oriented consistent policies.

Law and order situation must be improved to build the confidence of local and foreign investors, he remarked.

He was of the view that outage of gas and electricity, increase in tariffs, inflation and non-utilisation of availableresources for power generation affected the industry in the outgoing year.

He said that mark up rate of around 17.5 per cent has discouraged investments, while India and Bangladesh maintained low mark up rates of 11.5 and 12.5 per cent, respectively, to encourage and accelerate the industrialisation and investment process.—APP