Ladies and Gentlemen,
It is indeed a moment of great pleasure for me to be with this large auspicious gathering of real economic drivers of Pakistan on yet another successful edition of “Brands of the Year Award”. Brands Award Council is celebrating another aspiring year for successful organization of the 4th edition of this gigantic activity of Brands of the Year Award 2010. This activity is now certainly becoming the biggest national stage that exhibits the most acclaimed brands of Pakistan every year and also is a place where the most popular and trusted brands are thoroughly evaluated to determine their market standing and consumer preference.
It is indeed a moment of great pleasure for me to be with this large auspicious gathering of real economic drivers of Pakistan on yet another successful edition of “Brands of the Year Award”. Brands Award Council is celebrating another aspiring year for successful organization of the 4th edition of this gigantic activity of Brands of the Year Award 2010. This activity is now certainly becoming the biggest national stage that exhibits the most acclaimed brands of Pakistan every year and also is a place where the most popular and trusted brands are thoroughly evaluated to determine their market standing and consumer preference.
I have witnessed this activity twice before and this activity with the passage of time has achieved several milestones and set several benchmarks in its areas of operations. I must say that this activity has attained the confidence of our business community and I would like to assure all of you our best possible support in all possible manners.
I am very much pleased to note that the management of the “Brands of the Year Award” after a long journey of five years has now finally been transformed to a new thriving entity of a public company, i.e. “Brands Foundation” as a nonprofit organization under section 42 of companies’ ordinance 1984. To become a first public company in its area of services is indeed a well deserved distinction achieved. It is no doubt an utmost corporate status but with huge responsibilities as well. We are sure that as you have completed last five years with extreme efforts in achieving various milestones, you will continue this drive with the same determination and zeal. Your scope of activities has also been enlarged to an enormous extent. This legal mandate now entails more focus on national level projects and more objectively placed resources to carry out the tasks. I would like to express my heartfelt congratulations to the management of “Brands of the year Awards”.
On this auspicious occasion I acknowledge the contribution of the management of “Brands of the Year Awards” for their untiring efforts --- to promote the brand culture, --- to highlight the importance of brand equity development for Pakistani entrepreneurs and ---- to improve the brand image of Pakistani brands at national and international levels. Simultaneously, I also acknowledge the role of private sector in their endeavors in revenue generation, creation of employment opportunities, maintaining industry growth and overall economic development.
I am confident that under the public private partnership of IPO Pakistan, Brands Foundation will set the bar high for all others to come. Furthermore, I am pleased to know that Brands Foundation with its well defined given legal mandate has decided to take some innovative and revolutionary steps towards development of Pakistani Brands through implementation of project Brand audit, Brands Index of Pakistan, IP survey and Brands University. Yet another good news is that the Brands foundation is going to global arena and first foreign branch in UAE will be operative by close of this year. Best of luck – congratulations—and I assure that our foreign office will extend all necessary assistance in future ventures of Brand Foundation in becoming a global entity. Significance of brands can easily be understood with the fact that economy of the world today is driven by fortune brands that holds 40% share of the total GDP of the world i.e. US$ 60 trillion. It will be worthwhile to know that 65% of the world’s total economy lies with brand owners; while annual turnover of some of these fortune brands is far bigger than a developed country’s annual budget. Many developed and under developed countries do realize the fact that today’s economy is of brand empowerment.
Ladies and Gentlemen, you know much better than me -- what the importance of brand equity development is -- but I would say that you target should be to improve your brands to the level where consumer feel pride in using that, i.e. create the “Pride of ownership” which goes beyond brand loyalty; it occurs when a brand has developed its own distinct attitudinal and emotional space that speaks to the heart of consumer. Now to attain this status you will have to keep pace with the technological advances and the consumer’s needs through innovation. You must continue to think that how can you improve your brand and its perception. Mind it ---Brands are like personalities---and you have to nurture them very carefully.
Some observers may comment about the world being taken over by brands. But what is a brand? It’s a reputation. We must understand that we have moved from a century of coercion to a new millennium of persuasion. Good corporate ethics make good business sense and good business sense develops good brands with good future perspective.
Unmatchable quality, performance and reliability are simply the essential factors for any brand to enter to marketplace – thus the brand has become a critical factor in business. Whether the product being sold is tangible or intangible, intellectual capital plays a vital role by adding value to the product. The same basic principle applies to countries. Without a powerful and positive reputation or “nation-brand,” no country can consistently compete for consumers, tourists, investors, immigrants and the respect and attention of other countries and the world’s media. The branding of Pakistan is not a choice but a necessity. To succeed, it requires a concerted effort by all stakeholders - government, citizenry, businesses, political parties, charities, educational institutions, sporting organizations etc.
My fellow countrymen; now turning to the macroeconomic scenario as this is the biggest assembly of Businessmen and brand leaders at a single platform, I would like to mention that by the grace of God it is first time in the history of Pakistan that we are going to touch the export level of USD 25 Billion. Our forex reserves are now above USD 18.20 billion and are increasing at a reasonable rate, we have presented a best possible budget under the circumstances we are faced with and the remittances from Pakistani abroad are also touching the all time high level of approx. USD 12 billion. We have made progress despite serious internal and external challenges. These challenges include terrorism and religious extremism, aberrations in the constitution, economic crisis, unprecedented floods, energy shortages and other destabilizing events, including the insurgency in FATA and Baluchistan.
Many of these challenges we face today are international – and whether it’s tackling climate change or fighting terrorism or the challenges of economy – these global problems require global solutions. Because of this Countries all over the world are shaping and re-shaping their national identities and priorities as they compete with neighbors and regional blocks for power, influence prestige and wealth. On the other side in business whatever is likely to happen, the world economy will almost certainly double in size in the next 20 years – as the people of China, and middle class consumers of Asia become consumers for the first time. That’s twice as much business as of today; and twice as many opportunities. And among the winners will be the industrialized countries that can create the high value added products and services and train the people with the highest possible skills to make and create them.
Make a decision today that we will make never ending efforts to nurture and develop Pakistani brands. Now to safeguard this intellectual capital of branding, I am pleased to inform that IPO Pakistan has opted to conduct the first ever Intellectual property survey in Pakistan in collaboration with Brands Foundation and all the corporate community will have to make it a success in their own interest so that their IP rights can be protected and they can dedicate their energies of developing brands and brand equity. Quality is the first word towards building the brands and --- Brands Foundation has also been entrusted with another considerably gigantic task of developing Pakistan’s first Brand Quality assurance labs.
Ladies and Gentlemen, To attain developed nation status, we cannot remain complacent. We must change our mindset. Business is not as usual. Success demands drastic changes, not incremental. It requires a quantum leap. The choice before us is clear. Change is not an option but an imperative, an order of the day. We must change or risk being left behind in the history. Therefore, the challenge now is to make a quantum leap to the next stage of development. This is possible with careful planning and clear strategies. In the community of nations, Pakistan is a relatively young developing nation. Some of our success is due to the fact that we have been granted God-given advantages in terms of fertile land and natural resources, whereas, Part of our success is due to our ability to adapt to changing circumstances by implementing pragmatic policies. This has definitely been the case of our economy. We took advantage of our low cost labour to transform from being a commodity producer to becoming a basic level manufacturing driven economy.
Till to date this strategy has underpinned our growth and helped us to prosper. However, we must realize that supplying basic level manufacturing goods at low price cannot sustain our competitiveness. It will not enable us to take that quantum leap that is required at present. What is needed is greater emphasis on enhancing our technological capabilities and ability to innovate. It is essential that we extract more value from what we reap and we inject more value into what we produce. We must apply technology to implement more efficient processes, to create better methods of production and to invent new and better value added products.
Ladies and Gentlemen, government is meant for good policies and governance. We are striving hard to play our role in ensuring that Pakistan has enabling policies in place so as to remain attractive as an investment and trade destination for local and international investors. There are no short-cuts to economic recovery, and I do not promise that the road ahead is going to be an easy one. But I do believe that if the people of this country pull together, if central government, local government, business and communities work together, then I am confident that we can have strong growth, we can build a more prosperous and stable economy and we can have a brighter future for everyone in this country to look forward to.
Finally, once again I would like to applaud the efforts of this remarkable partnership of IPO and Brands Foundation in materializing the future oriented objectives related with Pakistani brands and Brands of Pakistan. I congratulate to all the winners at the victory stand today and am confident that they will escalate their brand value in future years. A big hand of applause is due for all the brand leaders. In closing, I would like to re-iterate that through partnerships we can make our country more reputable and can work together to create a truly developed Pakistan for all – both domestically and internationally.
I wish you all the best in your business and in your deliberations.
