(December 22, 2015)
Former President FPCCI Senator Haji Ghulam Ali and President PBIF and All Karachi Industrial Alliance, Former Provincial Minister of Information Technology and First Vice Chairman of the Businessmen Panel of FPCCI Mian Zahid Hussain reiterate the Govt. to take immediate steps for good for sake of survival of Pakistani Economy and to get it back on right path.
Policy reforms, budget consolidation and attaining higher reserves are immediate requirement of the economy. Despite lower oil prices in International Market, Pakistan’s trade deficit is getting wide and major reason includes declining exports. If this bleak situation continues, consequences would be much higher than recent measure of 40 billion additional taxes, they said.
Senator Haji Ghulam Ali and Mian Zahid Hussain said that performance criteria should be clearly laid down and non performers must be probed. Business Community in specific and masses in general will be suffered due to “Leniency” and “Let it go” attitude of Ministry of Commerce, which seems to be held hostage by few individuals of a specific lobby. Govt. writ is challenged on the matter of increase in export and now it is time for Commerce Ministry to exercise authority. On behalf of business community, we urge government to appoint full time CEO-TDAP for export increase, they said.
The BMP Leaders said that the current Office Bearer is unable to buy Power for Pakistan and can’t express views and perspective on various international forums and deliver its objectives to different stakeholders. Recent example include South Africa’s imposing of dumping duty on export of cement from Pakistan; Poland is no more interested to import rice from Pakistan. In addition, our local industries are being thrown in turmoil and all trade activities are done on consultation of few allies instead of masses. Holding of 12th SAARC Trade Fair-2015 and National Exhibition for Women Entrepreneurs (WEXNET) are some of the recent examples.
Senator Haji Ghulam Ali and former Provincial Minister Mian Zahid Hussain urged the Ministry of Commerce to promote meritocracy so bonafide businessmen should come up with better ideas resultantly leading to the betterment of economy and thus making it easier to reform policies. Higher exports will allow us to borrow less from IMF and other international lenders which will make our Debt Servicing Cost lower thus lead to consolidate our budget. In past few days, clause “A” of subsection 4 of section 111 of income tax ordinance was exploited and higher inflows of remittance was seen in order to whiten the income and neutralizing the impact of declining exports from current account, but due to recent changes in taxation laws, remittances have fallen sharply which made Pakistan exposed. We reiterate Ministry of Commerce to take suggested revolutionary steps for making Pakistani Economy stable, said the Business Leaders.
