(November 11, 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 said trade deficit of the current fiscal can tough the mark of 25 billion dollars.
Falling exports, reduced investment and sliding remittances have pushed trade deficit to 9.3 billion dollars in the first four months of the current fiscal and if the trend continues the deficit will touch mark of 27.9 billion dollars by the end of the current fiscal, he said.
Mian Zahid Hussain said that government has estimated the deficit for the ongoing fiscal to be 20.5 billion dollars which will be more than its projections as the deficit for the first four months is 22 percent more than the corresponding period.
He said that exports dropped by 6.3 percent in the first four months while imports swelled by 8.6 percent due to absence of serious efforts to cut the import bill.
The import target of 45.2 billion will not manageable unless serious efforts are initiated as the economic corridor may jack up the bill by 11 percent, he said.
Mian Zahid Hussain said that exports were above 24 billion dollars when the current administration came to power, since then exports are dropping to touch mark of 20.8 billion dollars in the last fiscal.
The Prime Minister constituted a committee to improve external sector in September and directed it to furnish report in one week but so far nothing has been done in this direction which is amazing, he said.
