(March-20-2024)
Chairman of National Business Group Pakistan, President Pakistan Businessmen and Intellectuals Forum, All Karachi Industrial Alliance, and former provincial minister Mian Zahid Hussain said on Wednesday that increasing electricity, gas, and oil prices would be cruel.
Further price hikes will also increase the risks for the government as the opposition can use this situation to create chaos in the country.
Mian Zahid Hussain said that continued price spikes can lead to a political crisis, which will be dangerous for the economy, stabilizing steadily.
Talking to the business community, the veteran business leader said that instead of increasing the burden on the people, the direct tax system should be improved, and tax should also be collected from non-tax-paying sectors.
The business leader said that in a country where setting up and running an industry is the most challenging task and playing with plots is the easiest and most profitable, the increase in production and exports is self-deception.
He added that development is only possible if capital is diverted to industry and agriculture and industry is not prioritized over all other sectors.
Agriculture needs to be prioritized after industry while bringing the big landowners into the tax net can generate at least five billion rupees.
Mian Zahid Hussain said that black money in Pakistan is kept in the form of plots, land, buildings, gold, dollars, and banknotes of large denominations.
Gold coming into the country through legal channels is negligible. In contrast, several tons of gold are brought into the country annually through smuggling, which causes a massive loss of revenue that can be regulated.
If dollar transactions are made subject to banks, the value of the rupee could be revolutionized as many exchange companies have become hotbeds of money laundering and are engaged in the continuous depreciation of the rupee.
Mian Zahid Hussain further said that some people believe that if the government abolishes the Rs5000 banknote, corruption and the black economy will be dealt a huge blow.
It will reduce bribery to a great extent, and people will be forced to transact through banks.
In 2016, such experiments were conducted in the neighboring country of India, which greatly affected their economy for a few months, but later, it became a global economic powerhouse.
