BECO Group

He was born in east Punjab, District Batala. His father Mehar Mehran Shah wanted that his children’s get a higher education, but he died in the childhood of Latif. Latif fulfilled his father desire. In 1930, he became a mechanical engineer. After graduation, he made his first factory only in the area of two rooms. His factory produced soap. His little brother M.Sadeeq was with him. Later on, M.Sadeeq joined Pak Navy. After partition, from 1953 to 1959, he was the first and only one Muslim Commander in chief in the whole Navy. Latif and Sadeeq did a lot of hard work and at last, their factory was recognized in their area. It was the first Muslim industry in that area where Hindus were the majority in number. After the achievement of a better reputation, he entered the business of iron. At the time partition, he had two choices, to stay in India with his business or sacrifice his business and move towards Pakistan. He chooses the second option.

 He came to Lahore and started his business from the first stage. He made a company named Batala Engineering Company in Lahore. It was known on the international and national level as “BECO”. BECO based on the first stage of investment. His father named him as a Latif. When he became young, people know him as Ch. M Latif. While in business lobbies on a national and international level, people know him as a CM Latif. He was the first visionary industrialist in Pakistan. Chinese PM Chu En Lai, king of Syria Hafiz ul Asad and king of Thailand visited his factories in Lahore. When Chu En Lai visited his factories, he copied the business model and the management rules of BECO. When he went back to China, he implemented all those models and rules in the industrial sector of China. Syria, Germany, Malaysia, and Thailand took advantage of CM Latif expertise, but Pakistani leaders cant took that advantage.

Father of Mian Nawaz Sharif and Mian Shehbaz Sharif, Mian Sharif was a well-known businessman at the time of BECO. I will tell you the background of Mian Sharif in my next blog. Today we only talk on BECO. In the business of iron, BECO was always number one on the graph while ITTEFAQ GROUP was always on the second number. CM Latif introduced so many things and equipment in Pakistan. BECO group was known on the International level and also got a lot of appreciation. In 1970 Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto stands in an election. BECO refused to give funds to PPP. In 1971 Pakistan broke into two pieces. Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto became the president. In 1972 he nationalized all the business sectors. CM Latif lost BECO. That incident offended him badly. Just imagine a man who did hard work in Batala. When he became a well-known businessman, partition occurred and he sacrificed all his business. When he became a well-known businessman in Pakistan, nationalization occurred. CM Latif left Pakistan. He went to Germany. After that Pakistan named his company as PECO, which was in a great loss till 1998. In 1977 General Zia requested him to come back and handle his company but he apologized. He died in 2004 at the age of 97. 

One wrong policy gave a huge loss to Pakistan. What a great man he was. But we didn’t recognize his efforts. We are such a numb nation. I think that if that nationalization did not occur, then today there is not such a high unemployment ratio.