September 23, 2016
President Pakistan Businessmen and Intellectuals Forum (PBIF), President AKIA, Senior Vice Chairman of the Businessmen Panel of FPCCI and former provincial minister Mian Zahid Hussain on Friday asked the authorities to take notice of the falling exports and dropping remittances which has almost doubled the current account deficit in the first two months of the current fiscal year.
Current account deficit in the first two months as compare to the last year’s rose by 92 percent due to deteriorating exports while imports continue to rise, he said.
Mian Zahid Hussain said that textile sector exports fell by 2.64 percent, remittances witnessed a fall of 3.2 percent while private sector credit fell by Rs 227 billion which is a very serious development.
He said that current account deficit has jumped from 686 million dollars to 1.32 billion dollars which is very alarming as it can inflict harm on balance of payments position.
The deficit of first two months was 1.4 percent of the GDP which has now climbed to 2.5 percent that needs immediate intervention of the authorities, he demanded.
He said that exports fell from 3.49 billion dollars to 3.22 billion dollar while imports grew from 6.80 billion dollars to 6.97 billion dollar.
Workers remittances which helps government to settle almost half of the import bill also fell by 3.2 percent which is alarming, he noted.
Mian Zahid Hussain noted that exports of food items including rice and fish fell by 23.15 percent while export of raw cotton slipped by over 100 percent due to 34.28 percent fall in cotton crop output.
He asked the authorities to take notice of the situation while SBP should try to reverse the trend of private sector credit off take.
