(Oct 09, 2020)
President Pakistan Businessmen and Intellectuals Forum and All Karachi Industrial Alliance, and former provincial minister Mian Zahid Hussain on Friday lauded the decision of the Prime Minister Imran Khan to personally meet with the leading businessmen to get their input for economic improvement.
The recommendations of business community will help the government improve economic situation and trigger industrialisation to reduce unemployment and boost revenue.
Mian Zahid Hussain said that PM is also eager to support neglected sector of SMEs and some positive steps are expected shortly.
Talking to the business community, the veteran business leader said that the export sector should get special attention as export earnings are necessary to run the country.
Presently all the energy of exporters is being sucked by government officials, taxation issues, energy scarcity and ending refunds which would never allow them to properly focus on exports.
He said that pandemic and closure of factories in India and some issue in other regional countries have diverted their attention of foreign buyers to Pakistan. Many foreign buyers have been preferring India over Pakistan for two decades but now the situation has changed.
Many local textile exporters have booked orders according to their capacity and now they are turning down orders while some others have started upgrading and expanding manufacturing capacity.
The government should benefit from the changing trends to gain lost share in the international market for which policy of borrowing from exporters in the name of refunds should be stopped.
The refund system is very faulty which should be improved to improve the situation otherwise, exporters would not be able to deliver according to their potential.
The refund powers should not be discretionary but institutionalised so that businessmen can be freed from the clutches of the corrupt bureaucracy.
