ISLAMABAD: The Islamabad Chamber of Commerce & Industry has called upon the government to come up with a clear cut and solid strategy for the revival of dwindling economy and put it on the path of sustainable growth as the prevailing aura of uncertainty on economic front was creating concerns in the business community.
Ahmed Hassan Moughal, President, Islamabad Chamber of Commerce & Industry said business community had lot of hopes from PTI government that it would create conducive environment for businesses enabling them to flourish smoothly, but there was no tangible improvement in the economic outlook due to which an impression of uncertainty was prevailing in the business circles and productive sectors. He said the World Bank’s latest report “Global Economic Prospects, Darkening Skies” has projected Pakistan’s GDP to decelerate to 3.7 percent during 2018-19 and Pakistan could face financing needs due to large current account and fiscal deficits combined with low forex reserves.
He said that PTI leadership before elections had made many promises for implementation after coming into power which included strengthening institutions, turning around loss making public sector entities into profit generating PSEs, improving governance and enhancing tax collections. However, despite the passage of four and a half months in the government, there was no significant progress on any of these fronts, which was cause of concerns.
He said the rupee has tumbled down to more than 11 percent during PTI government, but there was only one percent increase in exports, which was not encouraging. He said this scenario warranted that government should come up with a solid strategy to turn around the shrinking economy. He said such a strategy would give confidence to the business community and help it in finalizing its future business plans with better comfort level.
Rafat Farid, Senior Vice President, ICCI said that overall growth of large-scale manufacturing has decreased by 0.65 percent during July-Oct: 2018-19 compared to the same period of last year. He said though the government has arranged financing needs from friendly countries for one-year period, however, it was still not clear how the government would tackle the economic challenges after the lapse of one year without significant promotion of tax revenue and exports.
Iftikhar Anwar Sethi, Vice President ICCI assured that business community would fully support the government in its efforts aimed at steering the economy out of prevailing challenges and putting it on the path of accelerated growth.
