(October 04, 2017)
President Pakistan Businessmen and Intellectuals Forum (PBIF), President All Karachi Industrial Alliance (AKIA), Senior Vice Chairman of the Businessmen Panel of FPCCI and former Provincial Minister Mian Zahid Hussain on Wednesday said foreign and domestic loans, exports and the GDP will grow in the current fiscal while loadshedding is being stopped across the country from the next month.
Last year the country imports were $52 billion while exports were mere 21 billion dollars while the current account deficit also broke all previous records posing serious threats to the foreign exchange reserves, he said.
Mian Zahid Hussain said that now the exports have picked up but the government will have to acquire fresh loans to ensure balance in the payments.
The power production has been increased as the new power plants have started production and loadshedding is being ended across the country from the next month, he added.
He said that loadshedding for the industrial consumers has also been ended which will have a positive impact on the GDP.
Electricity production was 11804 megawatt in June 2013 while increased to 18658 megawatt in June 2017 which reduced the supply-demand gap from 7938 megawatt to 2888 megawatt.
Improved supplies also reduced loadshedding from 12-10 hours to 3-4 hours which will be eliminated within a month, he informed.
The Business Leader said that power production has been increased due to new power plants that have come online but the power generation and distribution companies have failed to improve their performance in the last five years.
These companies have failed to perform or fulfil their promises which continued to cheat the government about some issues.
Government should also focus on reducing losses as these companies inflicted losses of Rs.132 billion to the national exchequer in one year.
