LAHORE: The tanners have termed the power tariffs, which they said the highest in the region, main reason of decline in the country’s exports.
Former Pakistan Tanners Association (PTA) chairman Agha Saiddain, in a statement, said that the government is shy of getting cheaper gas and electricity from Iran but are very enthusiastic to get LNG from Qatter on very expensive prices.
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“Presently our export industry is facing load shedding of both gas and electricity despite the fact we see full page advertisements in the newspapers that load shedding in industry was totally eliminated. Unfortunately this is not true and industry still faces loadshedding in peak hours 4 to 6 hours daily.”
He said that the electricity tariff in Pakistan is highest in the region. As against per unit tariff in neighbouring countries Bangladesh (7.3 US Cents), China (8.5 US Cents), India (9 US Cents) the electricity tariff in Pakistan is 14 Cents per unit.
The ex-PTA chairman said, “The export industry lacks level playing field with competing countries and our market share at global level is shrinking day by day. All major export sectors like textile, leather, rice, carpets, surgical goods, sports goods know the reason behind fall in exports but rulers have turned deaf ear to their cries. Economic managers are more comfortable with borrowing rather increasing exports. They are not even aware of the fact that why exports of India, Bangladesh, and other countries are increasing despite devaluation of Euro, sanctions on Russia and crash of Stock Exchange in China.”
