PESHAWAR: Sarhad Chamber of Commerce and Industry president Fazal Moqeem Khan has urged commercial banks to provide soft loans to businessmen for promotion of small and medium scale businesses and improve lending ratio to facilitate business community. Addressing an awareness seminar on Islamic banking here on Thursday, he also called for bringing down the current interest rate to single digit. The seminar was ajointly organised by SCCI and State Bank of Pakistan at Chamber House. The SCCI president asked government and financial institutions to adopt business-friendly policies and play a role in revival of trade and economic activities in the province by creating employment opportunities. He said that it would lead the province to sustainable prosperity and progress. The seminar was attended by SCCI senior vice president Abdul Jalil Jan, vice president Shehryar Khan, SBP chief manager in Peshawar Waqar Ali, member of BoK Sharia Board and eminent scholar Qazi Abdul Samad, former president of SCCI Fuad Ishaq, executive committee members Aftab Iqbal, Mohammad Ashfaq, Saifullah Khan, Nadeem Rauf, former senior vice president Imran Khan Mohmand, Abdul Majid Khan, Feroz Shah, Syed Ejaz Ali Shah, Atif Khawaja, Mazarul Haq, Asim Shahzad, Zahid Sultan, Rashid Iqbal Siddique, Muqtasid Ahsan and representatives of various commercial banks. Qazi Abdul Samad on occasion delivered a comprehensive presentation, highlighting the significance of Islamic banking. Waqar Ali talked about the initiatives being taken for creating awareness about Islamic banking. He said that the central bank was working on four key frameworks including regulatory, Sharia governance, outreach of market development, basic awareness and collaboration with academia, industries and business. Mr Moqeem Khan said that Khyber Pakhtunkhwa was marked as ‘red zone’ by commercial banks, which was tantamount to discrimination against the business community and people of the province. He said that lending ratio of commercial banks was very low. He stressed the need for provision of loans on easy terms to traders to flourish